The Many Faces of The Kusabi
by Fante
Summary: After at least a hundred years of being called Rope Man, having to deal with the crybabies Limbo Man and Limbo Woman, and the whole being dead thing, it's pretty understandable to go a little nuts. Rated 'T' mostly for language. Chapter 16 up!
1. Damn Kids

A/N- The Kusabi is just going to be referred to as 'Kusabi' to make things easier/less confusing. Mkay?

A/N- I assure you, my writing skills are better than this, by way of writing details and all that. Come on, this is a parody. Laugh.

NOTE- I DON'T OWN FATAL FRAME, FATAL FRAME II, MIO, MAYU, OR THE KUSABI.

The Many Faces of The Kusabi

Chapter One: Damn Kids

Mio shivered. It wasn't the constant cold of this place, or the memory of freezing hands grabbing her throat, nor was it simple fear. It was, in fact, just a random shiver.

She rubbed her fingers on the old bloody key, simply to ensure that it existed. It was the key to that room, it had to be. That was how these things _worked,_ damnit.

The memory of that door made her shiver again.

Mio remembered hearing Mayu's voice mumbling, and Sae's mad laughter...

Suddenly, she stopped. She had wandered while thinking, and was standing in front of a simple white door, next to a hole in the floor that was there for some reason. It wasn't the door that made her stop, it was what she knew was behind it...

_I have to be brave... For Mayu._ She thought, and pushed the door open.

As the door fell away, the Great Hall opened before her. It looked close to normal, at least, for the moment... She glanced at the bloody fireplace, but tore her gaze away from it and instead focused on a large painting, thinking of what was behind it and why she had to get there. Carefully, as though testing the room, she put her right foot in, then her left.

Mio whispered a prayer to a god long absent from this place, and shut the door.

---

Sure, there was thunder.

Loud, booming claps that caused everything to vibrate. Yet, it seemed to be nothing but a squeaking mouse compared to the noise that echoed through the spectral plane. One would expect something dark and harsh, or frightening, like mad laughter. The thought that it could be as mundane as mere snoring was just as taboo as mentioning the Abyss.

Kusabi slept. He was sitting on a folding chair he'd dragged out, a novel open on his lap and a considerable sound echoing from his open mouth with every breath. He almost seemed normal by ghostly standards, drifting on the planes of deep sleep just as a bit of drool hanging from his mouth drifted so gently in the tremendous gusts of his breathing.

And then a loud noise echoed through the Great Hall, one even louder than the gentle sounds of sleep.

Amidst the sound of a yelling, now-awake Kusabi, a book hitting the wall, a chair screeching on the floor, and Sae yelling "TURN IT OFF!" somewhere in the background, there was an extremely loud _DEETDEETDEETDEET!_

The noise stopped once Kusabi yelled something like "Cherry Sprinkles!" Evidently, it was a password, for there was an annoyingly quiet, modest _click_ and the alarm stopped. Grumbling, the long-dead ghost assembled himself into the mortal plane.

_Not again..._ He thought as a teenage girl started to scurry past.

---

Mio ran.

Fear and the survival instinct flooded her, wiping all thought but a desperate need to get to the door. Her salvation.

She tried to ignore her sixth sense, though it pounded almost painfully. Mio skid to a halt at the door and forced it open, revealing an open garden with a staircase winding around it.

When the door shut, the pursuing ghosts usually stopped, because doors of all kinds were powerful, magical barriers. Mio had not shut the door, as it was still open about an inch, but the grainy black-and-white had faded from her vision and her sixth sense had dulled somewhat. Slowly, and reaching for the Camera Obscura, she turned and saw...

Nothing.

She flinched as a loud, booming voice exploded from the Great Hall, but forced herself to creep closer...

---

"Oh, shut up!" Yelled a certain angry ghost, his voice so loud that a death threat from Sae in the background went unnoticed.

His anger was directed towards another spirit, which sat against the wall behind the bloody fireplace. What was the most unusual thing was that it was...

Another kusabi.

It looked just like the angry, murderous Kusabi, but both of his arms were free and his wacky hair was dyed black and bright purple at the tips. At least, as bright purple as being all gray, transparent, and very dead could provide.

And he was crying, hence the shouting.

Angst!Kusabi looked up at the other wraith, tears pouring down his cheeks. "B-b-b-ut..." He pointed to the rectangular mark on his forehead with his right hand. "Y-y-ou threw that b-b-ook at me!" He wailed.

Kusabi smacked his own forehead with his free hand in frustration. "I didn't, you did that to yourself!" He pointed to the blamed novel, which was sitting mere inches from Angst!Kusabi's left side. Hastily, Angst pushed it away. "AND I didn't throw it; it only went flying because I jumped!"

Angst!Kusabi started to protest, but there was a soft creaking noise to the left-hand side of the room, and both spirits turned. "Hello?" Asked Kusabi, suspecting it was one of the other spirits being stupid again.

"Whoever it is has a better unlife than me..." Mumbled the depressed wraith. Kusabi ignored him and started to float towards the noise.

---

Mio froze, staring straight at the faded painting, her sixth sense throbbing again. Though something new and rather shocking had come to light, she knew that wouldn't stop the spirit from killing her.

She covered her mouth, trying not to let a single gasp escape her lips as her sixth sense grew stronger. Meaning, that the ghost would come through the painting any second...

Several eternal seconds passed, and for some freakish reason, the throbbing calmed down somewhat. The spirit was moving away...?

Seizing the chance, Mio turned and bolted.

---

At the sound of running footsteps, Kusabi muttered. "Damn kids..." Angst!Kusabi merely sniffled.

---

Mio slammed the door shut behind her, and crept to the open garden that the staircase wound around. She stuck her head into the space, letting the cold rain fall on her head as this new bit of information etched itself into her mind.

That spirit... Rope Man... there was only one of them. She was sure of it. If there was more than one, both would have come to kill her... Yet, she heard two voices.

Then... was the ghost talking to itself?

Mio shook her head to clear her thoughts, pulling her head out of the rain. She would have time to think of that later. Right now, she had to find Mayu.


	2. The Date from Hell

A/N- 'Kusabi' is temporarily 'The Kusabi' during Mio's part. Don't flame/correct me over it.

NOTE- I DON'T OWN FATAL FRAME, FATAL FRAME II, MIO, MAYU, OR THE KUSABI.

The Many Faces of The Kusabi

Chapter Two: The Date from Hell

After that brief disturbance, Angst!Kusabi went to go watch chick flicks or cry or something, and Kusabi went to bed after apologizing to the novel for throwing it against the wall.

And he dreamed.

Tonight, it was the morning, okay _fine_, the NIGHT after the Repentance. It wasn't a pleasant dream, because he was very, very hung-over. The other ghosts told him he floated around showing the villagers his 'Death Fingers.' The next night, there was a flaming bag of someone's ectoplasm on his doorstep. He suspected it was Limbo Man and Limbo Woman. The crybabies.

Kusabi was dreaming about someone bringing him one of those weird blue things with ice in it when someone woke him up. For a few seconds, he looked around mumbling nonsense words and blinking, before he saw the reason. That teenager was scampering by again, looking nervous. Behind her... Kusabi squinted. Oh yeah. Twins.

He watched them scurry by, then turned to see who'd woken him up. Then he rolled his eyes, exasperated.

It was PsychoKusabi, rocking back and forth and grinning really, really wide. Psycho looked more like Kusabi himself, though he was always grinning, making insane suggestions, and occasionally his ropes acquired minds of their own and made a makeshift straightjacket.

"What...is...it?" He asked, gritting his teeth. PsychoKusabi merely grinned wider, if that was possible. "Heyheyhey wanna kill the world toda-no I mean tonight! Tonightonightonight!"

"No." Said Kusabi sternly.

"Yousureyousureyousure?"

"YES."

"Aren'tyougonnakillthem? You know, those girlssss?" Psycho asked, twitching. "Itsnothefirsttimeyou'vekilledagirl."

"Not. Right. Now."

"Alrightalright, don't need to go craazzzyyy on me, brother! Besides, I'm dating Sae again in a few hours." He said, suddenly sounding calm and even close to... sane.

"I. Don't. Care." Kusabi hissed as Psycho drifted through a wall. Muttering something probably foul, he hunted for that novel again.

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Mio was heading for the Osaka House, the memory of Mayu's voice in that cell burned into her thoughts.

_"Dear sister, are you leaving me again?"_

She bit her lip and told herself that it was only the more reason to get that key so they could get out of here... Just as she set one foot on the doorstep of the Osaka home, she noticed something glowing white on top of Misono Hill. Clutching her camera, which had magically appeared as usual, Mio started heading towards the glow.

It probably had the key, whatever it was. That was how it worked...

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After the climb, Mio found not a hostile ghost, but something that might be, no, will be burned into her memory forever. Her jaw was, literally, dropping. For the first time since she'd come here, she felt a different breed of horror. Not the kind that made one flee, but something altogether different.

There were three ghosts, four depending on how you look at things. The glow had come from a ghostly torch swinging at an innocent crimson butterfly that fluttered over the altar. Not far away, the Torch-Bearer waited impatiently, tapping his foot on the ground. And wielding his (probably stolen) torch was...

Rope Man. The Kusabi.

As if this image couldn't get any weirder, Sae was leaning on him, giggling like a normal girl.

For about twenty seconds, Mio wasn't noticed. Then the Torch-Bearer noticed her while watching the butterfly flutter and went into Groany-Speech mode.

"The twin! Get her!"

He tried to raise a torch that wasn't there, realized his mistake, and pouted. Sae and the Kusabi leapt away from each other as though they were both electrified. Sae looked horrified.

"Yae! What are you doing here?"

The Kusabi started laughing, but in a high-pitched, insane laugh similar to Sae's. "Pretty pretty Yae has come to village!" He laughed louder, grinning madly and started heading for Mio. She turned and bolted, her camera magically disappearing.

Rope Man only laughed harder, following her and swiping, intentionally stopping an inch or so away from her flesh. He did this all of the way down the hill and stopped only when Mio ran into the Osaka house, where he was stopped by the magical door barrier.

"Awwww..." He groaned, then started to drift back to Sae.

Mio sat against a few jars, shocked. When Wanderer appeared in the room opposite, scratching her head and asking "What the hell?" she only nodded.


	3. Fallen Woman

A/N- Updated the disclaimer thing. Hoorahz. Ending is a bit off-tone, I know.

NOTE- I DON'T OWN FATAL FRAME, FATAL FRAME II, MIO, MAYU, THE CAMERA OBSCURA, THE KUSABI, OR ANY OTHER GHOSTS MENTIONED.

The Many Faces of The Kusabi

Chapter Three: "Fallen Woman is a..."

"We're lost."

Mayu was correct. The twins were, in fact, lost. Their original intent was to exit the Tachibana house through the Earth bridge and exit again from the Kiryu house. Unfortunately, Mio had forgotten just where the Earth bridge's room was, and was in for a nasty surprise if she _did_ find it, because she also forgot that the Tachibana end of the bridge doesn't work. At the moment, they were sitting in Itsuki's room, their Home Base for now, looking at the map.

"Where are you going?"

Both twins jumped and looked up, Mio with the Camera Obscura, which had magically appeared as usual. The voice came from Fallen Woman, who had her head cocked in curiosity and was halfway through the door.

"Shouldn't you be in the Kiryu house?" Asked Mayu as though she were talking about the weather. Mio still held the camera ready.

"Tonight I'm feeling...adventurous." She said, a rather daring yet seductive smile playing across her lips. "Anyway, where are you going?"

"The Earth bridge so we can leave through the Kiryu house." Replied Mayu.

"The Earth bridge is broken. You have to use the Heaven bridge." Mio's jaw dropped open.

"Thanks." Mayu didn't seem to care that was at least an hour's worth of wandering wasted.

"No problem." Said Fallen Woman, and she vanished.

Mio turned towards her sister. "Your familiarity with ghosts freaks me out." Mayu just shrugged.

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Kusabi was deep into the novel he'd been reading, trying not to bite his nails as the climax of the story raged. He was just getting to a particularly exciting part when he heard a giggle.

"Sae?" He asked, looking around, trying to locate the source of the noise. After a minute, he returned to the book and had just found his place again when he heard the giggling again... Right behind him.

Kusabi turned, expecting to see Sae or maybe even the Kiryu twins playing a stupid joke again, but didn't see anything. He looked left and right, before realizing the only probable direction and looking down, already preparing an 'Oh hah-hah' for the girl and doll when...

"Fallen Woman? Do you want something?"

Fallen Woman was dragging herself along as usual, but she was moving differently. Instead of looking for speed with which to kill, and looking creepy at the same time, she was delicately slinking into the room like a cat, her back arched more than usual.

"Uh..." Kusabi floated off of the usual crappy folding chair, looking uneasy. Fallen only giggled. His ropes started to twist and writhe, looking more like snakes...

And then something weird happened.

Kusabi drifted slightly to the left, blackness spreading over his funky hair and ending in purple at the tips. This new Kusabi looked mournfully to his left, as though looking at something that wasn't there. His voice was suddenly more high-pitched and whiny. "What does she want with us?"

Fallen stopped, looking confused. _Us?_

Angst!Kusabi drifted to the right, but drifted past where the normal Kusabi was. The color purged itself from his hair, but the air around this new wraith spoke of hate. His voice was raspy and seemed to be made of a thousand rusty knives. "Kill Her... See if our kind can DIE." MurderKusabi floated to his right, becoming normal Kusabi. "I don't want to try... It might be a waste of time..."

Fallen was definitely freaked out now. Hadn't Sae once said something about this...?

"I don't want to kill her." Angst!Kusabi, sounding like Akane Kiryu.

"Everything must die." MurderKusabi.

"I'm not doing it." Kusabi.

"I DON'T WANT TO!"

"EVERYTHING WILL DIE!"

"SHUT UP!"

"I WON'T!"

"LEAVE ME ALONE!"

"EVERYTHING!"

This argument was broken by Fallen Woman screaming. Kusabi, who was just about to speak, looked at her, the shadows of his other personalities stirring hungrily behind them. She was panicking, which is hard to invoke in a ghost. "I don't care if Sae thinks it's sexy! I'M OUT OF HERE! MAAAAANNN IIIINN DAAARRRRKKK!" She yelled, crab-running out of the room.

Kusabi scratched his head. "Dude... She's into Man in Dark?"

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Mio and Mayu were standing in the Heaven Bridge, holding each other close and hoping they wouldn't have to fight Broken-Neck Woman when they heard a female scream somewhere in the distance.

"Don't worry, she's not close and doesn't want to hurt anyone right now."

Mio stared at Mayu. "You're really creeping me out now."

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Masumi was sitting in the closet of the Great Hall, listening to his MP3 player when a scream even managed to breach the likes of loud rock music. "Not cool." He murmured, and turned it up even more.

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Woman-In-Box heard a scream and fearing that Sae and The Kusabi were somehow killing again, temporarily forgot she was in a box and smashed her head into the lid. "Damnit!"

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Sae was hovering by the Hellish Abyss, waiting for Yae as usual when a scream rang out from somewhere above. She thought about it for a moment, before she recognized the scream. Her head shot up, eyes filled with hatred and teeth bared. "That harlot!"

TO BE CONTINUED...


	4. Breakup and Disco

A/N- Sorry this took awhile. I had trouble coming up with just where this chapter was headed and my Internet connection's been messed up lately.

A/N- The note is repetitive, I know. Come on, it blankets just about everything and I have other things to do than carefully edit it to tailor every chapter and character when it it's not necessary.

NOTE- I DON'T OWN FATAL FRAME, FATAL FRAME II, MIO, MAYU, THE CAMERA OBSCURA, THE KUSABI, OR ANY OTHER GHOSTS MENTIONED.

The Many Faces of The Kusabi

Chapter Four: Breakup and Disco

One night in the Kurosawa house, the veiled priests and the ceremony master were reenacting the last Kusabi ritual, but they couldn't concentrate, for strange sounds were echoing through the building. The Ceremony Master was deep in some chant about gravy boats when he noticed that most of the priests were leaning their heads back ever-so-slightly, listening to the distant noise.

"Bob!" He shouted suddenly, and the least-discreet priest not far from his right jumped. The others immediately returned their heads to the proper position, trying not to snigger. "We're SUPPOSED to be reviewing the Cutting Ritual, but is there something more important that you would like to tell the class?"

Bob the veiled priest started shaking. "I... ah... err..."

The Ceremony Master tapped his foot impatiently.

"Uh... It's just... those sounds... are distracting!" He said, terrified.

The Ceremony Master listened for a moment. Indeed, odd sounds drifted up from somewhere below. After a second, he heard distinct laughter and sighed. Now he would be distracted too.

"Class dismissed."

The gray, colorless PastVision (tm), the ropes, the dummy kusabi and everything else vanished with the smell of roses. "Stop messing with the control settings…" He said, sounding exasperated, then disappeared through the door.

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_Earlier…_

PsychoKusabi was floating around the Hellish Abyss in clockwise circles. He'd been sleeping in the Great Hall's ceiling when his tamer brother, Kusabi, had shoved his shoulder and told him to run like Hell. Not understanding just what he had to avoid, as he was the most powerful damn ghost in the village, he'd just run to the first place he thought of: The Abyss.

Unknown to him, he'd just averted disaster. As he floated through the walls, a very, very angry Sae run up the stairs mere inches away.

He stopped to play with the noose hanging from the gate when he sensed a spirit. It wasn't some kind of ESP or anything, just the yells of the Mourners as they were brutally shoved into the walls. He couldn't help but giggle at the image.

He saw a familiar figure in white hovering on the stairs not far away, head bowed. "Sae? What's wrong?" PsychoKusabi started to reach and float foreword, when the figure slowly raised its head.

Psycho saw Sae's glare and had half a second to think to himself, _Oh shit,_ before she lunged.

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Ryokan Kurosawa drifted through the Mourner Passage, the distracting and annoying sounds still drifting through the tunnel, though the echoes had made them unrecognizable. As usual, the Mourners were ambling around, bumping off of the walls, and occasionally murmuring how glad they were that they no longer had toes to stub on the rocks. He ignored them, instead looking for a particular Mourner he always favored... to a certain degree.

Ryokan no longer needed to look when he reached the part of the tunnel with the small amount of groundwater to the left... for his goal had just leapt out in front of him from the wall. He sighed. "Pete."

"Arrrr, what do ye want ye scurvy dog?" The ghost brandished his plastic red lightsaber, which looked more menacing than usual in the flickering torchlight, and grinned, revealing the teeth he'd covered with some black substance to make them look gross and pirate-y. It was probably some makeup Pete had swiped from Fallen Woman.

"Do you have any idea _what_ is going on down here?" Truthfully, Ryokan only favored Pete because he was the only one with enough remaining teeth... or brains... to reply rather properly and he was easy enough to find.

Pete sheathed his lightsaber. "Arrr... I sent me fine crew down into the deep of that place but none returned." He looked mournful, no pun intended, until the fake blue eye he held in his left eye socket fell.

After several moments of fumbling on the ground and swearing, Pete resurfaced. "Thank you for your... _help_." Said Ryokan. Pete failed to notice the peculiar emphasis on the last word. He merely nodded, the threads of his makeshift eyepatch stretching dangerously.

Not long after the Ceremony Master left, he heard Pete swear again.

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PsychoKusabi was powerless.

Sure, he'd been granted freedom from the ropes that bound him for the first few rounds of this game, and could run, but he couldn't leave. Every time he tried, a rogue Invisible Wall stood in his path and he had to flee again.

Insane laughter had filled the chamber as Sae had chased him, moving at a deadly, leisurely pace only to disappear. The first few times, Psycho had looked around, thinking she'd left, only for her to appear inches from his face and invoke a feminine scream.

Now, he was getting tired, his face sore from the slaps received from not moving quickly enough. A sentimental spirit might think that it wasn't the slaps that hurt, but the hate behind them, but fortunately neither Psycho nor (most) of his brothers were.

But normal hate is exhausting.

Sae had never tired and she never would again.

Shaking, Psycho stumbled on a rock and fell, face landing in the hard rock. For a moment, he contemplated laying there and just going to sleep... And then a pale hand grabbed him by the clothes by his throat and pulled him up so he was on his knees.

Before, the female wraith had been laughing with insane, hateful glee. Now, she was just furious.

Psycho whimpered and Sae raised a hand to strike, though he let out a gasp as his ropes suddenly wrapped around him and squeezed tightly like starving snakes. Suddenly, Sae dropped the exhausted wraith, causing him to consume an uncomfortable amount of earth, though the ropes loosened enough to allow him to breathe. She grinned as widely, showing as many teeth as possible, and faced the entrance where the noose hung.

"Hello daddy." Sae said as Ryokan drifted in. He paused just beyond the noose and narrowed his eyes, surveying the situation.

Sae was standing with a, quite frankly, creepy grin next to what must be one of the Kusabi's split personalities. The latter was bound by his own ropes; breathing oddly, had a face that looked raw from one physical trauma or another though it was hard to tell because he was face first and in an awkward pose on the floor.

"Hello Sae... Would you be so kind as to... enlighten me on the situation?"

She grinned further. "Well, this little rascal was threatening... uh... Yae! Yes, Yae and her weird friend. And I'm punishing him." She giggled, becoming even creepier by doing so.

"I see..."

Sae's grin started to disappear.

"I think... it would be better for all of us if you stayed away from the Great Hall and this place for a while." Ryokan said, allowing his sentence to gently settle in like falling snow... or poisonous gases mixing with the air. Sae's eyes grew pleading and even rather moist.

"Daddy..."

"No arguments. Now go upstairs."

Sae pouted and stomped her left foot. "No."

The Ceremony Master's face began to take on skull-like characteristics, the skin being stretched thin and slightly transparent. "I said **go upstairs."**

"No!" Sae crossed her arms and stomped harder, forcing herself not to wince from the resulting pain.

Those weird white ice-ball things appeared and hovered around Ryokan. "Now. Or I'll start dancing." They formed into a single orb and became a supernatural disco ball, glittering evilly and almost laughing. You know, ahahahahahAHAHAHA and all that.

Sae's eyes widened. "You wouldn't."

His face took on full CreepySkull mode and he slowly started to slide into a classic disco pose...

Sae's lip trembled for a moment, before she ran straight through her father and up the stairs, sobbing hysterically. Ryokan sighed, his face returning to normal and the evil disco ball dissipating. He looked at PsychoKusabi, who hadn't moved or spoken in all this time, before turning and leaving.

Once he set foot on the top of the stairs, a tremendous snore echoed through the tunnel.

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_Several hours later..._

PsychoKusabi was dreaming about Candyland again when he was awoken by something hard yet familiar hitting his side. "Huhwazzat?"

He'd fallen onto his right side, still bound tightly, though able to yell.

"Hello? ... Sae? ... Anyone?"

But he was left alone and in the dark.


	5. The Angst

A/N- Back from a lengthy pause! Sorry about that, I got absorbed into reality, school and such. But thankfully, a little review note slunk into my inbox and gave me a bit of a boost!

**DISCLAIMER.** The gothiness/emo/whateveryoukidsarecallingitnow of two characters, which I will not name or it will spoil the chapter, are being used for cliché purposes only. Don't flame me.

NOTE- I DON'T OWN FATAL FRAME, FATAL FRAME II, MIO, MAYU, THE CAMERA OBSCURA, THE KUSABI, OR ANY OTHER GHOSTS MENTIONED.

The Many Faces of The Kusabi

Chapter Five: The Angst!

_Green rolling hills. Warm sunshine. A blue sky. Birdsong._

_Angst!Kusabi blinked several times and stretched. What was this place?_

_Had he... passed on? To Heaven?_

_Then he remembered that he simply **had** to be hell-bound by now and sniffled. Before he could begin his daily sob, a little bunny rabbit appeared._

_It was small, yellow, fluffy, and positively adorable. It sniffed the air with its little pink nose and sat on its back legs, holding out its paws. In these paws, there was a cookie._

_Angst stared for a moment. The rabbit let out a moo and pushed the cookie into his hands. Angst sniffed it, checking it for poison should he be so lucky. It seemed to be clean. With a shrug, he ate it. The rabbit looked happy and purred._

_Then there was a sharp squeal and then the bunny was gone. He looked up in alarm and saw a great bird soaring away, a squealing bunny in its talons. Strangely, it was funny. Very funny indeed. As most people do, Angst started to giggle._

_The birds sung on._

_He didn't stop giggling._

_The sun shone._

_He started to laugh._

_Mio looked at him through dark sunglasses. She leaned up against a tree that, like her, wasn't there a second ago. _

_"He's dead and gone, Johnny..." She said in a voice that wasn't hers._

_Angst!Kusabi laughed on..._

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The _Real_ Angst!Kusabi (tm) bolted upright, his sharp intake of breath echoing throughout the Abyss.

He'd been in one of his... nightmarish... Happy Dreams, though it got all weird in the end... He paused to contemplate his possible insanity, and then a wave of dark inspiration rolled over his brain like a fog. A poem! Yes, he must write a poem of this madness!

He started to reach for his elementary school composition journal Book of Shadows but realized that he couldn't move his arm.

"Wha?" Turning his head, he realized that he was bound by his own ropes. "Get ooooofffff meeeeeeeeeee..." He whined in his most annoying voice, and they slithered off.

With a sigh, he pulled out the banged-up composition book from his Magical Pocket. Many of the pages were missing, since the teachers made them write diary entries and he'd only kept the 'darkest' ones, such as when his hamster died. Most of the book's cover, front and back, were colored with sharpie marker.

He flipped the pages until he found a clean one and paused. Should he be wimpy and write his original, dark thoughts in pen, or show his blackness with his own blood...?

_Several minutes later..._

Angst held the razor above his right wrist. He touched his skin with it but let out a whine and pulled back. He was too wimpy and too distracted right now...

"Damnit." He muttered, and smacked his forehead on the blank page.

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Kusabi sat on the folding chair once more in the Great Hall. However, instead of reading, he was rapidly texting on his cell phone.

do u hav any recomindations?

yea, but its in my persunl libraree. i tink u'll hav to com over.

k. wut du u tink of the endng?

i tought it wuz rly stupd.

yea. brb

_Oh great,_ he thought as Angst drifted through the wall. He awaited some sort of sob story to come pouring out of the ghost's mouth, but none came. Clearly, something was wrong.

"You okay?"

"Huh?" Angst pulled himself back to reality. "Oh yeah. I'm just so... distracted!" He said, sounding irritated. "I can't write any poetry or sob or _anything_ today and..."

At that point, Kusabi had spaced out, having recognized this was going to be a rant that a PMS-ing girlfriend would be proud of. He drifted in and out of reality for a few long minutes, before Angst stopped. As usual, he was nowhere near where he began.

"... and it tasted all wrong. Whoa, glad that's off my chest." He finished. "I'm gonna go to the graveyard and try to cry there."

"Alright, have fun..." Kusabi said, turning back to his conversation and rolling his eyes behind Angst's back.

sury bout taht. angst again.

itz ok. i undrstnd. anyway...

yea. the ending wuz so... ah... stupd. aftur all taht time, she STILL... u kno.

yea! i mean srsly...

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Angst!Kusabi stood outside of the Kurosawa mansion for a moment, breathing in the alien air of the Outside. He stared off into space for a moment, then suddenly stopped and shook his head.

"Huh?" It was a little red dot, flying through the air...

Rather hypnotized, he started to walk down the bridge, realizing there were _several_ red things fluttering around. Closer still, he realized that they were crimson butterflies... and somebody was standing there...

He stood behind the figure, dressed entirely in white. It seemed to be sobbing a little; its shoulders, lit softly by the butterflies, jerked with hiccups.

"Are you okay?" He asked, reaching out and touching its shoulder...

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_A girl dressed in a white kimono stood in the Great Hall, surrounded by bodies. Her laughter, once soft and lovely, was corrupted by madness. Throwing back her head as he laughed, he could see that her kimono was covered in blood..._

_Flash._

_A clown danced in a bright circus tent, a cracker smothered with vegetable oil and peanut butter in his hand. The clown laughed and took a bite of the nauseating food, crumbs falling from his red lips. It picked up a kitten from the floor and smiled as the kitten meowed._

_Flash._

_"Hi-diddly-oh neighborino!" Said Flanders._

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"Whoa!" Angst!Kusabi said, jumping back. The figure turned and looked at him...

"Sorry... I have this habit of causing weird visions..." Sae said, her eyes puffy and red from crying.

Angst didn't say anything for a minute. "Uh... ah, that's okay..."

She smiled...

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_A night or two later..._

Mio was frustrated. She showed this in a rather unhealthy way, however. Instead of simply screaming or some such method, she banged her head on the nearest solid object multiple times.

They were still trapped in the freakin' village. At this point, Mayu had gotten 'possessed' so many times that Mio had completely forgotten the plot. They'd tried just leaving the village the way they came in ("Wandering through the forest is better than this crap!") but they found, to Mio's frustration and Mayu's "Oh Well," was that there was an invisible wall at the gate

They'd tried throwing things, taking its picture, and even convinced the Kiryu twins (They sure love candy) to try ghost-related things, all to no effect. This led to where the twins are now: Mio banging her head on the gate and Mayu star/cloud/sky-gazing. It had been this way for the better part of an hour now.

Then Mayu let out a cry.

With a considerable amount of profanity, Mio turned around. 'Oh, COME ON!" She yelled, pulling the camera out from nowhere.

But she saw nothing.

"Mayu, what's going on?" She asked.

"Sorry, she just startled me..."

"Who?"

Mayu pointed. For a moment, Mio couldn't recognize it...

It was a girl wearing a black kimono with a red obi, an extremely pale face, and about a ton of makeup. Dark shapes fluttered weakly about her. After a moment, the twins recognized that they were Crimson Butterflies, but weighed down slightly with black paint.

The girl looked at them with distant, sad eyes for a moment and simply stood there.

It was Angst!Sae...

---

Reviews:

DarkAnimal6- Thanks muchly! -Hug-


	6. New Power

A/N- How do you pronounce 'Chitose' anyway? I think it's "Chit-oh-say" but I dunno.

A/N- I was going to put more stuff in this chapter, but just couldn't get it to work. It's also more, eh, serious than the other chapters. At least I think so. -Shrug- Well, enjoy anyway, and Happy (Belated) New Years!

NOTE- I DON'T OWN FATAL FRAME, FATAL FRAME II, MIO, MAYU, THE CAMERA OBSCURA, THE KUSABI, OR ANY OTHER GHOSTS MENTIONED.

The Many Faces of The Kusabi

Chapter Six: New Power

PsychoKusabi hadn't taken this forced break-up very well. Instead of cackling, annoying his brothers, and generally scaring random people just by strolling by, he spent his nights prowling irritably in the shadows around the village and occasionally snapping at people that looked at him. At one point, he'd reduced little Chitose to tears three times in one night.

And every action has a reaction. In turn, the village had become quite irritated with him. So far, he'd gotten lectured or chewed out by Broken Neck, Limbo and Drowned Woman, and even Kusabi. Some of the wraiths such as the Veiled Priests and Mr. Kiryu muttered 'Punk' whenever they saw him. Fallen Woman, The Wanderer, and Masumi all called him a 'jerk.' Even Itsuki disliked him for the way he treated Chitose, even though it took a week for the news to drift his way.

He hadn't seen or heard anything of Sae.

MurderKusabi, who seldom made an appearance, had taken to hanging around him. Yet, he never said anything. He merely hovered nearby, apparently invisible to everyone else, and watched him with an unreadable expression.

Even the butterflies seemed to avoid him.

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One night, PsychoKusabi was lurking around the cemetery. He was slightly less annoyed and irritable than normal, having gotten to spend some energy chasing out Grave Girl. This was, perhaps, for the better, as there was the sound of small feet scampering across the nearby bridge.

After a moment, two ghosts became visible through the fog. It was the Kiryu twins, who had taken to being 'messengers' of sorts when someone else was too fed up to speak to him themselves. Though they frequently brought insults, they were one of the few ghosts that he wasn't harboring negative feelings towards, and likewise, they were one of the few that weren't sick of him.

"Yeah, what is it?" He asked, withholding a now-typical growl.

Akane started first. "Fallen Woman told us-"

"-to tell you-"

"-that Sae is-"

"-like-"

"-going out with-"

"-Angst!Kusabi-"

"-and that she hopes-"

"-you're happy,-"

"-jerk." Akane finished.

There was a tense few seconds before Psycho spoke again. "Alright, go." The infamously creepy girls giggled and ran off. Despite their disturbing appearance and behavior, they still possessed something that most children did; a blissful ignorance. They saw, but did not see the writhing of ropes. They heard, but did not hear a venomous hiss.

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Angst!Sae didn't feel a lot of anger in her entire unlife. Anger was Fire. It was hot and destructive, yes, but it only burned for a short time, leaving only cold ashes behind.

She ran mostly on Hatred. Hatred, though similar to Anger, was Ice. It curled up silently under the skin and waited, watching with patient eyes until the time was right.

Though as with everything, there are exceptions.

"Give. It. Back." She hissed, her words making a slight echo in the Clock Hall.

Fallen Woman crossed her arms, glaring at her from her position near the broken clock. "Nope." For a moment she had the strange urge to blow a raspberry but restrained herself.

"Why did you take it?!" Angst!Sae snarled, a familiar cloud of blood slithering up from the floor and surrounding her form.

"Isn't it obvious?" Fallen Woman asked, looking a little less mad and a little more smug. "One, nobody around here likes your attitude. Two, you raided my makeup. Three, your new boyfriend is a _freak..._ but I guess you can't help that."

Angst!Sae started to move towards her from the center of the room, but Fallen saw it coming and teleported to a safer location on the opposite wall.

"That doesn't mean you can take my... my..." Angst!Sae tried to find a word, hands balled into fists, but Fallen provided it for her.

"Soul? Heart?" She taunted, dangling the diary-turned-angst-breeding-ground with a careless hand. Angst!Sae suddenly lunged at her, but Fallen was still too quick and vanished again. "There's a nice advantage to not wearing ten tons worth of makeup, Saekins." She hissed from some unknown place, probably the ceiling.

Then something clicked...

There were several moments of silence, before Fallen teleported to the ground, once more by the broken clock. Angst!Sae was staring at the air with a strange, blank expression, the mist of blood gone. Before Fallen Woman could even start to wonder, something invisible and terrible tore through the air as suddenly as the Darkness itself had. There was a brief second where she didn't recognize what it was, as such a thing was rare here, before she realized with pure horror.

"Take it Take it!" She screamed, dropping the diary and retreating as fast as possible, the wretched sensation of being covered in that... _thing..._ still echoing in her mind.

Angst!Sae slowly emerged from her small trance. After a few seconds, she turned and looked at the spot where Fallen Woman had been, still looking a little blank.

"Oh."

As though nothing had happened, she picked up her diary and faded.


	7. The Oh, Crap! Factor

A/N- I'd like to say thanks again to all of my reviewers! )

A/N- Kinda a random chapter for some reason. On the other hand, it's not a very bad thi-Why is France so far away?

NOTE- I DON'T OWN FATAL FRAME, FATAL FRAME II, MIO, MAYU, THE CAMERA OBSCURA, THE KUSABI, OR ANY OTHER GHOSTS MENTIONED.

The Many Faces of The Kusabi

Chapter Seven: The "Oh, Crap!" Factor

Gender Role: (Society) Expected behaviors of a certain gender. (For example, females must be housewives.)

These were once very important in societies past, so much so that it leaked into the laws of the area. As civilizations and technology evolved, the age-old lines of 'x must be/do x' began to blur.

This effect has even leaked into rather... _exotic_ places, such as a village frozen in time and haunted by ghosts. This was made evident by a feminine scream that echoed from somewhere in the Kurosawa house one night.

Kusabi had taken to curling up in the ceiling to read, as sitting in his usual spot had become very distracting as of late. The youngest of the Kusabis, Angst!, kept wandering by with a misty, dreamlike quality about him. This quality, aside from being very disturbing when applied to Angst!Kusabi, also tended to get the song 'Ring of Fire' stuck in the heads of everyone within twenty feet.

Occasionally, Psycho would also drift through, thankfully not at the same time as Angst!. The first few days, he simply acted like a bitter adolescent just in the way he floated. Though Kusabi couldn't blame him, ever since the Ceremony Master banned him from leaving the mansion, it was quite annoying. After that phase, though, he changed. He either had the air of a prankster from hell about to pull a great trick, or was ranting about one thing or another, oblivious to the fact that there were other people in the house.

With the two Kusabi brothers constantly drifting in and out, Kusabi was glad he'd long gotten rid of that burglar alarm ever since those damn kids started making _weekly_ trips past him.

Anyway, he'd been reading as normal, when he heard a thumping noise. Now, if he had been sitting in the folding chair as normal, he would have ignored it. Such things were a daily occurrence in a freakin' _haunted village._ But since he was in the ceiling, it was rather out-of-the-ordinary, as only a handful of ghosts ever used the ceiling. Out of curiosity, he'd turned and found himself staring into the eyes of one of the Children Playing Tag. Hence, the feminine scream that almost broke a flower vase.

Of course, the girl had fallen out of the ceiling laughing.

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_Later that night..._

Angst!Sae drifted through the Rope Temple, pausing to look at the red-stained instruments below the ropes. Aside from simply wanting to note such a morbid thing, she was secretly listening; partially in case her father and the priests were coming to re-enact the ritual again, and partially because she sensed a rather familiar presence in the room.

"Hiroshi."

There was the clatter of plastic on wood, what sounded like the word 'Crap!' and a rustling movement. Angst!Sae waited for a second before an invisible something cleared its throat and spoke.

"Hey! That name is gone,

It cannot be used again,

So please don't say it."

"Alright." She said simply. "How about... Stupid?"

There was a noise like a delicate fluffy kitten landing on a bed of flowers, a _whoosh_ of air, and there was a cheap, plastic butter-knife sticking out of Sae's throat as though stabbed from behind.

"... You really are stupid, aren't you?"

The knife withdrew and the holder scampered back to wherever it was a moment ago.

"I am not stupid,

After all, I'm not the one,

Painting butterflies."

Angst!Sae crossed her arms, looking around a little just to see where Hiros- uh, Some Guy, was hiding. "The butterflies, having been killed by the hands of their own twin, _must_ wear the darkness they carry in their souls." She said, sounding as though she'd rehearsed that line about a hundred times.

Some Guy's reply carried a smirk within it.

"Whatever you say,

After all, it is cliché,

My little Saekins."

The angsty ghost rolled her eyes and muttered what sounded like 'narrow-minded pig.' Before she could even think of unleashing that wretched force she carried, Some Guy was gone.

_Coward…_ She thought, and went on her way.

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Angst!Sae, despite having been delayed by Hiro-_Some Guy_, still had to wait a few minutes for Angst!Kusabi to show up.

He'd had a good reason, though. The ballpoint pen he used for angsti- writing Deep and Dark Secrets of the Universe, had run out of ink, and he had to persuade the Wanderer to give him a new one.

She didn't mind, since she knew that one of them would be late anyway. They usually went down to the Abyss for... uh... angsting together... but had decided to go to the cemetery instead. It was Angst!Kusabi's idea. When she asked why they were changing places, he said that he 'didn't want to talk about it right now.' He'd sounded a little nervous about that place...

This worried Angst!Sae a little bit. It was hard to scare someone that was already dead...

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_A few nights later..._

After the ceiling incident, Kusabi had relocated to the inside of the floor for reading. As usual, he'd only read about a day when he realized that something was tugging at the back of his mind. And it wasn't 'Ring of Fire.'

He'd tried to ignore it, but it continued tugging and making noise until he couldn't even think of blocking it out. After a few minutes of searching, he'd realized what the problem was: He hadn't seen PsychoKusabi or MurderKusabi for days.

MurderKusabi rarely showed up anyway, but combined with Psycho's absence, it unnerved him deeply. He spent most of the following night asking if anyone had seen him, and all of them said that they hadn't. He noticed that most of them seemed relieved.

Fallen Woman: "Nope. Haven't seen that jerk since Tuesday." She'd said, gnawing on a massive piece of chocolate.

Masumi: "What? WHAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU. Oh for the love of..." Click. "Okay, what? Him? Nope. I mostly stay in the closet anyway... Broken Neck, quit giggling."

Itsuki: "...What do you think?"

Woman-In-Box: Bump. "Damn! ... Ow... No, I haven't... And those are some nice shoes, by the way."

After about twenty minutes of chasing two certain hyperactive balls of energy through the narrow halls of the Kiryu house, he managed to corner them in the Projector Room.

"Just... tell... me... if... you've seen... Psycho...Kusabi..." He asked, panting. The twins giggled.

"Well..." The Doll-Azami.  
"We"

"Told"

"Him"

"Something"  
"At the"  
"Cemetery."

"When?"

"Some" Akane.

"Tuesday."

"And what did you tell him?"

"That Angst!Kusabi was..." Azami.  
"Well, is..."

"Going out with"

"Sae."

_Oh fantastic..._ Kusabi thought. "Thanks." He said.

"No"

"Problem."

He quickly put Finding Nemo in the film projector, to the high-pitched squeals of the girls, and ran off to find Angst!Kusabi.


	8. Fall

A/N- Right. Has anyone reading this gotten to play Fatal Frame 3? I don't have a PS2 and I can tell you now, thanks to the ten-million crappy FPS games out there, I'm not gonna find a complete plot summary anywhere. I need to know what happens/happened to the Camera Obscura after that game. I don't mind if it just nicely faded out of existence. ;)

A/N- And on a random note, Woman in Dark scares the crap out of me.

NOTE- I DON'T OWN FATAL FRAME, FATAL FRAME II, MIO, MAYU, THE CAMERA OBSCURA, THE KUSABI, OR ANY OTHER GHOSTS MENTIONED.

The Many Faces of The Kusabi

Chapter Eight: Fall

_"We will perform the ritual with Sae al-" A buzzing noise, a brief second of static._

_"One small step for ma-" BZZT._

_"Now we add in the cinnamon to-" BZZT._

_A Spanish program about lizards. There's a faint, distant noise, seemingly coming from a separate plane than the green lizard perched on a log. It sounds like a small argument. Suddenly, BZZT._

_A chef is cutting up some celery on a well-cleaned cutting board on an equally sanitary counter. Some recipe name is on the top of the screen...vision... thing. There's a scratching noise, faint and distant like the argument. After a second of frantic scribbling, someone says "Okay, go." BZZT._

_"Uh, okay, um... Z, four, Q, another Q... uh, a third Q, and the Batman symbol." BZZT._

_Angst!Sae standing in front of the screen-thing, the background looking like some kind of dark rock. She taps the left-hand corner a few times. "Is this thing on?" Someone in the background says "Yeah." She straightens her posture and clears her throat. "Uh, yeah. I don't know which of you is getting this, but, ahhhhh, there's something really, really bad going on down here at the Abyss-thing. Should probably bring that instrument of de- camera. Pretty please?" She glanced behind her for a second. "Yeah. Please hurry." BZZT._

_Static._

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Mio reflexively yanked her hand away from Mayu's, the odd vision still in her mind, though some part of her shrugged and said _"Well, at least it ain't creepy kids hanging in a hallway somewhere."_

"Sorry." She said after a second, looking into her twin's eyes.

"It's alright." Said Mayu, smiling a little. That particular breed of vision only appeared once or twice in the whole game anyway.

They stared into each other's eyes for a second, digesting this new vision, before Mio asked "Should we go?"

Mayu nodded. "If we don't, they might go back to trying to kill us again."

That was one of those rare times where Mayu's creepy statements, casually of course, didn't send shivers down Mio's spine.

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Most of the villagers knew the truth about the Kusabis, to one degree or another. Usually, the discovery came about when -insert 'brother' here- gave a strange answer as to why -insert 'brother' here- wasn't around, or visible. If The Kusabi, as a whole, had its way, it would simply project its hallucinations into the mind of the other ghost present. But it's much harder to trick a ghost's mind, requiring much more energy and focus than, say, a human.

Yet, when a few spirits were paid t- bravely ventured down to the Abyss, they saw two spirits. One was Angst!Kusabi, suspended in the air by his neck. The other was someone new.

It was as though some deity had a little too much to drink and decided to go and make a Kusabi brother infused with vampire, werewolf, zombie, jiang-shi, Barbie, chupacabra, gorgon, unicorn, angel, cake, demon, wolf, dragon, spider, ninja, vulture, space alien, pirate, lawyer, and a touch of cute fluffy kitten.

Okay, not really.

It was like the other 'brothers,' a freaky-looking guy with really poofy hair and ropes. They all do, underneath the various individual attachments.

This new one had one of his arms tied to his chest, and his ropes were what they were meant to be; not a makeshift straightjacket, not used for turning pages, not metaphorical writhing snakes. They were spread, making him seem impossibly large and as though they were close to ripping him apart. They even looked like a butterfly's spread wings, though they were far from lovely and delicate.

His eyes were dark and rather blank; he wanted to kill, but had all eternity to do it. Occasionally there was even a flicker of pleasure at the thought.

And _that_ was what was holding Angst!Kusabi by the throat in front of the Abyss, looking mildly interested, and causing more than one ghost to run back up the stairs screaming.

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Mio and Mayu made their way down the underground path, Mio making sure that she moved slowly enough that Mayu could keep up. Memories of the last time Mayu was outrun still sat vividly in her mind...

_"YEEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAAAAW!" Young!Mio yelled in a fierce battlecry, running down the forest path for no obvious reason._

_Young!Mayu stood there for a few seconds, stunned. Eventually, she said "Oh my god, she just ran in."_

_Young!Mayu ran after her occasionally-not-bright sister, yelling in her general direction, in varying levels of politeness, to stop or at least slow down. Suddenly, her foot slid. Looking down, she had about half a second to think to herself, "Oh crap."_

_Young!Mio eventually found her way to where Young!Mayu lay, facedown and far too still. For a second, she feared the worst, then..._

_"... Mio, you are just stupid as hell." She said, voice muffled by a forest floor of leaves and dirt._

_"At least I have chicken." Mio replied, holding up what seemed to be a form of the mentioned poultry._

_But she did not have chicken, only a deceiving pile of leaves._

Mentally shaking herself out of her thoughts, she realized that there were no Mourners bumping into the walls and talking about prune juice as usual. As the twins went further down the path, they began to hear and sense the ghosts ahead. A Mourner stood towards the right-hand side of the tunnel, mumbling what sounded like "Dude... what?..."

They continued walking, the number of Mourners increasing as they came closer to whatever the big mess was.

When they reached the very end of the tunnel and stepped into the candle-filled chamber, Mio almost gasped in reflex, the intake of air being held down only by the ever-present fact that the Wanderer often had them around for tea on Tuesdays.

There was a line of what looked suspiciously like yellow Silly String drawn across the entrance to the next tunnel. Clustered around it was variety of ghosts; Pete the Mourner, a few priests, the Ceremony Master, Mr. Kiryu, and Angst!Sae. Nearby, a few People in Dark were shooting stupid videos with a tripod camera.

A little nervously, Mio and Mayu approached. Angst!Sae turned and scampered towards them, looking a little relieved.

"What's happening?" Asked Mayu, taking Mio's hand to keep her from exclaiming something like "Holy crap!" and running away.

"You have to come see..." Angst!Sae said, sounding greatly and genuinely worried about whatever it was.

Carefully stepping over the Silly String, the three girls snuck down the tunnel, Angst!Sae in the front. Towards the end of the path, Angst!Sae held up a pale hand to stop.

"Alright, slip up here and look." She whispered, drifting aside and partially into the wall so that the twins wouldn't need to walk through her.

They carefully tiptoed a few steps down the path, both of them rather tense. When they saw the ghosts, they both had to use their hands to stifle a gasp and other sounds of surprise and shock. However, Mayu was the only one to say "Holy shit!"

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The three of them regrouped further up the tunnel, close enough that they could see the crowd of ghosts, and far away enough that the Ceremony Master couldn't begin his distracting scowl-fest.

"So what are we going to do?" Asked Mio.

"We don't have a lot to work with. The only thing I can think of is using an Intimidating Sho- I mean, my new power, to try and stun him enough that Yae can run in and start using the instrument of d- camera." Replied Angst!Sae.

Mio ignored the usage of 'Yae' for the ten millionth time this little vacation. "What do you mean by new power?" A dark part of her mind scrambled for a pencil and paper, should the ghosts start trying to kill them again.

"I'll show you." Angst!Sae turned, looking at the candle-lit room where most of the ghosts were. "Hey, you! Woman in Dark!" She yelled.

The ever-fugly ghost-ess drifted over to them and hovered nearby. "Yes?"

Angst!Sae's eyes suddenly glazed over, staring right through her. Woman in Dark looked a little confused, then...

"Oh my god, Canon-B-Gone!" She screamed and turned to run, but a number of Black Butterflies (tm) swooped in and clung to her in mass. Apparently, these were the fat butterflies, for she was pinned to the spot. For a few seconds, she squirmed and squealed, before going oddly limp. The black butterflies fluttered off of her, save for a few that stayed near. Combined with her bowed head, Woman in Dark looked like a fuglier version of Sae.

Suddenly, she turned around, posture instantly straighter and eyes bright.

"Say, love, would you be interested in a cup o' tea?" She asked in a new British accent, acting as though she was like this every day.

Angst!Sae's gaze sharply returned to normal. Woman in Dark stood there for a second, staring off into space, before she too returned to normal. After the half a second needed for the memories of Canon-b-Gone to return, she ran away screaming.

"...Wow." Said Mio and Mayu at the same time, something they rarely did.

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The new Kusabi (Henceforth temporarily known as WrathKusabi) dangled Angst!Kusabi by his left arm, creating a slight contradiction in this chapter by using his upper-right rope.

"Pleeeeeeeeeeeaaaaasseeeeeeeeee leeeeet meeeeee gooooooooooooooooooo!" Angst!Kusabi whined in his most annoying voice, the voice that would make any adult within thirty feet exclaim_ "Oh my god, shut up!"_

WrathKusabi ignored him, instead cocking his head ever-so-slightly. In reply, Angst!Kusabi stuck out a trembling lower lip, another one his deadly weapons, but it fared no better than the whining.

It was then that something wispy and intangible hissed into the back of WrathKusabi's mind. Turning, he saw a girl in her teens, dressed in a black kimono with a red obi. He couldn't see her face, as her head was bowed slightly, her long black hair hiding most of her visage.

WrathKusabi growled a like a wary animal, revealing that for some freaky reason he had sharp canines.

The girl did nothing.

After a few seconds, he turned back to the captive Angst!Kusabi, who was also staring at the girl. However, his eyes were wide and frightened, but not for himself.

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_About thirty seconds earlier..._

Mio stared in numb horror at the two Kusabi ghosts. One Kusabi, a lone One-Hit-Kill-Your-Mirror-Stone-Sucks-Hahaha was bad enough, but two?

By this point, thankfully, her mind had learned that panicking and getting scared only made ghost fights harder. Shortly after that, she learned that that was probably the first thing _anyone_ would notice. D'oh.

Anyway, she stood tense at the Abyss entrance, about a foot away from where the rope hung from the last gate. Mio tensed as the bigger ghost turned its head, and Mio squeezed Mayu's hand, but it looked at something about thirty feet to her left. It growled and bared its teeth for a minute, but turned away.

Mio glanced at Mayu for a second. They were both worried... Mayu had to stay here while Mio had to fight this thing...

Her cue would come at any second.

When the ghost let out an animal howl and dropped its captive to the floor, Mio swallowed and ran into the Hell-Turned-Arena.

Raising her camera, loaded with Type 90 for now, she saw that it was ready to make a Zero Shot. She pressed the shutter button and the Kusabi-thing let out an angry cry, stumbling a few feet. Stopping itself about a foot away from the Abyss, it glared at her, still looking oddly animalistic. The camera still promised a Zero Shot...

Mio pressed the shutter button again, and the ghost fell into the Abyss with a wretched scream.

"Huh?" She slowly lowered her camera, staring at the air where the ghost's face was. After about five seconds, she glanced behind her. Angst!Sae drifted out of the wall where she had been hiding after casting Canon-B-Gone. Their eyes met. Angst!Sae shrugged.

Suddenly something big and gray lunged out from the wall directly behind Angst!Sae. Mio, afraid there wasn't enough time to take a picture, leapt to the left. The Kusabi ghost missed her, stopping itself after a few feet and disappearing.

Mio frantically looked around, afraid it might lunge from a wall again. It did, this time from the east. Better prepared for the lunge, Mio shot its picture. Fatal Frame!

After the harsh combo that almost sent it back into the wall, the wraith hissed and faded. Since she knew that it would be another four or five seconds before it attacked again, Mio quickly changed her film to Type Zero.

She made about three of these Fatal Frame combos, the last of which began with the OMGWTF Power Lens. About three-fourths of its health was gone!

In the pause between lunges, Mio never lowered her camera.

Ten seconds had passed.

Fifteen seconds.

Thirty seconds.

Mio allowed the camera to dip below eye level... Did it run away?

"MIO! LOOK OUT!" Mayu screamed, sounding terrified.

On a whim, she looked up, raising the camera at the same time...

The ghost hung from a web of ropes...

Suddenly it dropped, screaming, arm outstretched... Grinning...

Too late to move...

Mayu screamed again...

Something massive and black, a rush of air...

**"MIO!" **Mayu...

And then there was nothing.


	9. Recovery

A/N- I've decided what the ending will be.

A/N- Fanfiction dot net seems to hate asteriks...

NOTE- I DON'T OWN FATAL FRAME, FATAL FRAME II, MIO, MAYU, THE CAMERA OBSCURA, THE KUSABI, OR ANY OTHER GHOSTS MENTIONED.

The Many Faces of The Kusabi

Chapter Nine: Recovery

Mio opened her eyes slowly, her gaze and thoughts blurry. Just as they began to sharpen and Mio started to think she should find out where she was, something warm and familiar tackled her and pulled her into a hug.

"Mio! I was so scared; I thought I'd lose you!" Cried Mayu, burying her face into her sister's shoulder.

Mio blinked a few times, and then embraced her sister. "It's okay, Mayu. I'm here..." She said soothingly, stroking her hair. "I'm okay..."

After a few minutes, they parted, though they remained close. Mio looked around, figuring out where she was. She was in Itsuki's room, sitting on a tatami mat that had been dragged in.

"What happened?" Asked Mio, looking back into Mayu's eyes.

-

"After you took that picture of that ghost, that _thing_... It fell from the ceiling and... Hurt you. It only just managed to graze your throat before... before Sae attacked it with her powers and a swarm of black butterflies."

"The ghost yelled in a high-pitched voice and disappeared, but you weren't moving..." She swallowed.

"A few of the villagers took you to this place, and Broken Neck and the Wandered pulled this mat in here... I followed the villagers... They put you here on this mat, and you were barely breathing... After a little while, you started to breathe deeper, like you were asleep... And you've been like that for several hours now."

-

"It's okay, I'm sure nothing like that will happen again." Said Mio after a small pause, stroking Mayu's hair again. She smiled slightly.

A black butterfly fluttered through the room, a chip of black paint falling from its wing as it did.

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Angst!Sae soon came to visit, looking glad and relieved that Mio/Yae was okay. After the expected barrage of "Are you okay, Yae?" and "I'll get you anything if you need it, Yae," Mio managed to ask, "Why did I see two Kusabi ghosts, there's only one..."

---

"Weeelll..." Angst!Sae sighed, collecting her thoughts and starting to force over a hundred years into a nutshell. "This is going to be a long one..."

"For starters, the Kusabi Ritual isn't... pretty. You get slashed and cut and put in horrible pain, and aren't even allowed to die. That would traumatize and scar... in many ways... just about anyone. But when the Repentance came..."

-

_Flashback. After getting over his immense hangover, Kusabi went to look at himself in one of Fallen Woman's many mirrors. When he saw his fantastic new hairstyle and overall nastiness, his jaw fell open. Veiled Priest Bob stood nearby, expression unreadable for obvious reasons. Kusabi, not looking away from the mirror, asked "I'm going to look like this forever?"_

_"Pretty much." Was Bob's reply._

_"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"_

-

"Well, the Repentance started to push his... the Kusabi's... fragile mind over the edge. To try to cope with the stress, his mind started to split. One by one, his other personalities were created. As they developed their own traits, he named them, calling them his 'brothers,' with himself being the oldest of them."

-

_Kusabi was reading in the Great Hall once again. Out of the blue, PsychoKusabi ran by with a pair of scissors, screaming "IIIII'VE GOT SCEEEESSSSOOOORRRSSSS!" and giggling. Kusabi looked up and watched him run by. When PsychoKusabi was gone, he shrugged and went back to reading._

-

"Over a few years, there came to be four personalities, including Kusabi himself. There was almost no change in this, and everyone became used to the concept of four Kusabi 'brothers.' "

"But eventually, people started to wonder. If the four original 'brothers' were created by stress, could another one ever be born? Though most of us went into denial, because nobody wanted another one these guys running around."

-

_Angst!Kusabi drifted down the underground tunnel, the sounds of stumbling Mourners echoing through the tunnel. One stumbled in front of Angst!Kusabi, muttering the usual gibberish. Among it was "Dude... you... you suck..."_

_Angst!Kusabi sniffled and ran away crying._

-

"But no matter how much we denied it, it seems to have happened now."

"Each of the 'brothers' has a distinctive trait. The large ghost that you saw... it... it had none of them. It might be someone new."

"And, no matter if it is or isn't a new personality, it's powerful. The reason you two saw two spirits is because the big ghost _forced_ the image into your mind. That's easy to do to someone that's alive. But the rest of us, the dead... we saw it too. It's very, very hard to force an image into the mind of a ghost. It requires a _lot_ of power and focus. And some of us are becoming scared. What could this ghost do with this power?"

-

_Torch-Bearer, albeit without his weapon of choice, ran down Misono Hill's path. He was no longer gray and transparent; he seemed to be made completely of flesh and blood, even stumbling over a rock about halfway down the hill. As he sprinted towards the village, he tripped and fell near the Osaka house. Turning, he saw the Kusabi ghost making its way toward him, completely unstoppable and without mercy._

-

"Thankfully, nobody's heard or seen any sign of this... monstrous creature."

---

Angst!Sae let this thought sink in. After about a minute, Mio asked "Then if stress caused this bigger ghost to be born... what was the stress? And why was it hurting one of the other personalities?"

"I... I can't tell you exactly what happened, but... Something bad happened to one of the personalities, a very hyperactive, impulsive, twitchy one. Slowly, it... became convinced that it was the fault of one of the other personalities, the smaller one with the colorful hair, the one that was attacked... A few of the villagers are thinking that this new personality is somehow a mutation or merging of the angry personality... We... aren't sure."

There was a pause, and then Mayu asked, "If the smaller one is innocent, then... is he okay?"

Angst!Sae actually smiled a little. "Yes, I think he's innocent and... he's okay. He's recovering."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mio spent the next few days recovering in Itsuki's room, taking herbal medicine and sacred water every day. Mayu never left her side during these days, save for one time where she wandered off _again_ and had to be bought back by the Kiryu twins.

Since ghosts usually stopped by to see if they were okay, Mio became more and more comfortable around sprits in general, even Angst!Sae. Though Angst!Sae always seemed to be deep in thought about something...

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Day Three and A Half. "Why is this taking so long?" Asked Mio, keeping her voice in a simple curious manner. She hated sitting in one place for so long...

Bob was the only Veiled Priest that did more than poke their head in to make sure she was still alive. "Never before has such a thing been attempted, to bring someone back from that Place..." He shivered slightly. "That horrible Place..."

"What do you mean?" Asked Mayu.

Bob began to answer, but there was a deep, powerful noise from somewhere in the distance, like a bell ringing. "Oh, fudge!" Bob cried. He was late for a re-enactment. Again.

Hastily, he gave Mio a pamphlet titled _So You Came Back?_ and ran off.

Apparently, Mio had come back from what was known as "The " or "The Game Over Screen."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On the fourth day of recovery, Mio could walk again, though she needed Mayu's help.

The Amakura twins were passing by the remains of the Tsuchihara house. "Hold on..." Said Mio, looking at the remains. Mayu paused and followed her sister's gaze.

"Is something wrong?" She asked.

"No..." Replied Mio. "It's just... I want to know what these people did that was so horrible."

So began a moderately-long quest.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Torch Bearer: "I doooooon't knooow, buut IIIII heeaarrr that myyyy greaat-greaat-graaandpappy or sooomeeesuucchh heeellppeed buuuurrrnnn theeeeeiiiirrrrr hoouusseee." He was in Groany-Speech mode at the time.

Fallen Woman: "Doesn't this place have, like, a library? ... Oh right, it doesn't. Teehee."

Itsuki: "Why the hell haven't you left this place yet?" He was later reported to be banging his head on the wall in frustration.

Veiled Priest Steve: **"During a PTA meeting on the thirteenth hour of the thirteenth day of the thirteenth month..."** He then droned on for several hours, blissfully unaware that ten minutes in, he had no audience whatsoever. It turns out he was talking about chutney, anyway.

They even managed to hunt down and ask Pete the Mourner and the ever-elusive Some Guy. Pete the Mourner, haunting the usual tunnel, actually shut up for more than two seconds. Some Guy, on the roof of the Kiryu house, started giggling uncontrollably and almost fell off.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Since nobody else seemed to be providing anything useful, and Mio's curiosity was far too much, the twins even found the courage to ask the Ceremony Master.

"Yes, yes, a moment..." He'd said shortly after a class on how to make gravy boats, standing in front of the rope-shriney-thing. About a second after he spoke, though, the room was suddenly tinted red and orange and 'Ring of Fire' played somewhere in the background. With what could have been a swear, he dashed through the twins and out the door. Evidently, someone was playing with the PastVision machine again.

Five seconds later, the special effects disappeared. After about thirty seconds of what sounded like a brief chew-out, the Ceremony Master literally poked his head through the door.

"I will return shortly." He said, and faded as though teleporting.

Another thirty seconds later, he reappeared practically right in front of the twins, holding an ancient-looking text. In the village, pretty much everything short of _Harry Potter and the Screaming Monkeys_ was just as old, so that wasn't unusual. What was unusual was the fact that there were many things drawn on text, graffiti that was visible from ten freakin' feet away.

"Now shoo." He said, handing Mio the book. "A certain someone has to come back here and write lines, and he'll use any distraction as an excuse."

Later on, the Amakura twins would realize that he hadn't scowled at them once.


	10. Tsuchihara

A/N- My Explanation pwns the game's explanation. I like how it explains why certain people... had to... do what they did... at that time in their life. (Yaynospoiler.)

NOTE- I DON'T OWN FATAL FRAME, FATAL FRAME II, MIO, MAYU, THE CAMERA OBSCURA, THE KUSABI, OR ANY OTHER GHOSTS MENTIONED.

The Many Faces of The Kusabi

Chapter Ten: Tsuchihara

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

All God's Village: A History

(Beneath it was a small, detailed drawing of a house that seems to have come with the text itself. Someone of lesser talent had drawn little stick figures in the windows.)

TABLE OF CONTENTS (Though it read 'Table of Condiments.')

(Someone had blacked out all the page numbers.)

I. Introduction. Pages

II. Early Settlers. Pages

III. The Village is Founded. Pages _(999,999)_

IV. The Discovered. Pages

V. The First Ritual. Pages

VI. The First Kusabi. Pages (_Badger badger badger!)_

(The rest of the contents were recently added. They seemed to be important events that occurred after the text was completed.)

VII. Tsuchihara Falls. Pages (_Brains...)_

VIII. The Kiryu Twins. Pages (_The Kiryu Twins: Everyone's Freaked Out.)_

IX. Yae and Sae. Pages (_A variety of graffiti, some profane. Among them is a drawing of a chicken.)_

X. The Repentance. Pages _(More profane graffiti. Among them is "Holy crap!" and "NOOOOOOOOOOO!")_

(The rest of the Table of Contents wasn't filled out yet.)

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Tsuchihara Falls

The fall of the Tsuchihara family began when Altar Boys Hiroshi and Hideyoshi Tsuchihara were born, Hiroshi being the older twin. Throughout their entire childhood, the Altar Boys were fighting. Hideyoshi would innocently be walking through the village, and Hiroshi would sneak up on him and attack from the shadows with a stick.

After the first few times, Hideyoshi learned to carry his own weapon, also a stick, and conceal it.

Despite this new development, Hiroshi's attack pattern remained the same; sneak up, follow, and attack. Therefore, Hideyoshi became specialized in detecting sneak attacks. More than once Hideyoshi turned and hit his brother first, to both of their surprise. As the years passed, both brothers perfected their individual techniques and would sometimes fight from dawn to dusk. More than once, the Tsuchihara twins would keep the entire village awake with the sounds of sparring. And just as many times, the village would band together and form a sneak attack, knocking out one of the twins so that the fighting would cease.

Even when the brothers were Cleansing for the Ritual and their weapons removed, they still found ways to fight. Hiroshi became particularly skilled and hand-to-hand combat, while Hideyoshi learned to use _anything_ in the area as a weapon.

When both twins were at their sixteenth year, it was time for the Ritual. Neither of them fought each other or even looked at each other, instead appearing numb and moving rigidly. Hiroshi, looking completely blank, performed the ritual with no problems. It was only when Hideyoshi's body fell into the X that horror started to flow over his face.

Several minutes passed. Hiroshi started to tremble, fearing that Hideyoshi would not become a butterfly.

Then something amazing and horrible happened. Instead of a crimson butterfly emerging from the X, a completely alive and healthy Hideyoshi emerged! To this day, nobody knows what happened and why. (Among the graffiti was a theory scrawled on the side of the page. It basically proposed that Hideyoshi had annoyed the forces of the X so much that it brought him back to life and threw him out, partially just to get him away and partially as a punishment for the villagers.)

The Ritual was attempted again, and once more, Hideyoshi was thrown out of the X without a single mark on his neck. However, the second time there was a note attached to him saying "From X with love."

Even though Hiroshi was horrified at the experience and all thought of killing his brother, they began fighting again just _weeks_ after the Ritual attempts. To stop their constant fighting, both of the twins were made into Mourners, and the Ritual duties fell to the young Azami and Akane Kiryu.

(The rest of the page was added recently.)

When the Repentance came, the X brought back the spirits of the long-dead Tsuchihara twins as part of the punishment. Similarly, Akane Kiryu and the Doll were brought back to terrify everyone. _(See also: Creep the crap out of everyone.)_


	11. Sae

A/N- Another thanks to my reviewers and readers. :)

NOTE- I DON'T OWN FATAL FRAME, FATAL FRAME II, MIO, MAYU, THE CAMERA OBSCURA, THE KUSABI, OR ANY OTHER GHOSTS MENTIONED.

The Many Faces of The Kusabi

Chapter Eleven: Sae

"So... That answers your question?" Asked Mayu.

After retrieving the text, the both of them had scampered to Itsuki's room (aka Home Base) to read the section on the Tsuchiharas.

"Yeah, and then some. Did you know a duck's quack never echoes?" Mio asked, pointing to a random note on the bottom of the page. "I think we're going to need to borrow this for a few days..."

"Why?" Asked Mayu, cocking her head.

"This... could tell us how to leave the village." Mio replied, sounding a little numb. She was going to say that "there may be more awesome facts here," but she'd just realized this... And their possible escape was more important than butterflies tasting with their feet.

There was a few seconds of silence. Neither of them had given any thought to leaving this place for a while now...

-

"Or we could use this." Said Mayu, breaking the silence.

Turning, Mio saw that she was standing near a table, holding a few papers and a small, circular stone with a colored pattern on it. "What do you mean?"

"Well, this paper has a nice cupcake recipe scribbled on it... And how to get out of the village, quit looking at me like that!"

"Heheh. Sorry."

"These instructions seem to be true, and if they aren't, it can't hurt to try... But we can't just _leave._"

Mayu didn't need to explain what she meant.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Angst!Sae stood on the top of Misono Hill, watching the village (un)life pass by. Occasionally, she'd glimpse a rope or a flash of gray, and would sigh.

Kusabi was still looking for Psycho and MurderKusabi, even though almost everyone, including the Ceremony Master himself, had given up. Angst!Kusabi had recovered enough to do what he pleased, but he was still scared of leaving the Kurosawa house. Even then, he looked for the missing ghosts in every corner and under the roots of every plant in the house. And inside every kimono box, now that she thought of it.

The tug of family, even if it was only perceived family, was a strong force.

Angst!Sae looked at her hands, thinking.

_Psycho would never, ever hide like this... He must be..._

She closed her eyes.

_Enough of this..._

When she opened them again, most of the village's butterflies had come to her, fluttering all over the hill. Almost all of them had a chip in the black paint covering their wings, some gaps of red larger than others. One of the butterflies landed in her hands, quietly opening and closing its wings.

Angst!Sae smiled, shifted the butterfly to her right hand, and started to remove the rest of the paint.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A certain wraith patiently waited outside of the Rope Temple, a rapid scratching noise coming from somewhere beyond the door. It sounded like somebody was writing as fast as they could, though she didn't have time to determine exactly what the noise was, because it soon stopped. There was a soft rustling noise, like paper moving, then voices.

"Is this okay?" It was Veiled Priest Joe, probably in trouble for messing with the PastVision for the third time this week.

"Yes. Now don't let me catch you doing it again."

The ghost stepped aside as Joe drifted through the door, rubbing his right wrist and muttering "I will not act like an adolescent monkey... I will not act like an adolescent monkey... Jeez..."

Once he was gone and his not-so-quiet complaining almost out of range, she entered.

The Ceremony Master was inside, inspecting the various ritual instruments, to make sure that Joe hadn't messed with them while his back was turned. When he noticed the ghost, he put down what looked suspiciously like a used toothbrush, turned, and actually _smiled._

"Hello, Sae." He said.

"Dad..." Sae paused. "I know I've been very... I've been arguing with you a lot lately... and I'm sorry." She averted her eyes.

"It is alright, Sae. Everyone goes through times like that..." Ryokan said soothingly, causing Sae to look at him, relieved.

"Now once more... show me this gesture known as a 'high-five.' "

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Great Hall.

"So you see why this... won't work, right?"

Angst!Kusabi nodded. "Yes... I don't think we are as alike as we thought."

"So... You're okay with this?"

"I understand. Perfectly. And... About what happened to me, my brothers..." This was the first time he'd spoken about the subject... "I think we need some time to... recover. You know?"

"Yeah..."

Somewhere off, Limbo Man groaned for brains.

"So..." Sae.

"Yeah."

Masumi started whistling one tune or another. From the sounds of it, he was headed for the house's Entrance/Exit.

"Well... Good night."

"Good night."

The two spirits embraced for the last time.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_The next night..._

Mio and Mayu were walking away from the entrance to the Whisper Bridge, having just returned the historical text, when they saw someone both a stranger and very familiar standing on top of the stairs.

It was Sae, though she wore no makeup, and her kimono was once more white and bloodstained. A few Crimson Butterflies fluttered around her, casting their faint red glow.

It was Mayu who spoke first. "Hi, Sae."

The ghost nodded. "Hello."

"How are you?" Asked Mio. Somewhere off, a ball bounced.

"I'm fine, thank you." Sae replied, and smiled.

A variety of ghosts (Children Playing Tag, the Kiryu Twins, and Chitose) appeared at the bottom of the stairs, near the Amakura twins. At the sight of them, Chitose hid behind the Kiryus.

"Have you seen our ball?" Asked one of the Children standing closest to them, a young boy.

Sae teleported next to the twins so she could speak to the mass of young spirits. "I don't think so, but I'll help you find them." All of the little ghosts smiled, even Chitose, who peeked over Akane Kiryu's shoulder.

Sae turned to Mio and Mayu. "You both look tired; you should probably get some rest." Looking back at the children, she added "I'm sure we can find the ball, right guys?" A cheerful wave of agreement rippled over the ghosts.

"Okay." Said Mayu. Even she was a little surprised by this sudden change in Sae.

They exchanged their 'Goodnights' and 'Sleep well's, and everyone started off on their various goals.

-

Mio and Mayu went to Home Base, Sae and the children found the ball (it had landed behind a Twin Deities Statue), and there were warm fuzzy feelings all around.


	12. Predator

A/N- Someone has a non-temporary name now. Whoot.

NOTE- I DON'T OWN FATAL FRAME, FATAL FRAME II, MIO, MAYU, THE CAMERA OBSCURA, THE KUSABI, OR ANY OTHER GHOSTS MENTIONED.

The Many Faces of The Kusabi

Chapter Twelve: Predator

"And I was like, 'He is _so_ totally into me and not into you...' And she's all 'Whatever' and goes back to her sandwich. I mean seriously, what happened to respect around this place? R-E-S-P-E-C-T people! Ugh. Anyway..."

_Is he **ever** going to stop? Maybe realize that I'm not listening? Breathe?_

"And then the grilled cheese EXPLODED! It was everywhere, and I mean EVERYWHERE. And I was wearing my good outfit but now it smells like cheese. Everyone's outfit smells like cheese now. Ew."

_Maybe I can keep reading Moby Dick and he won't notice..._

For the better part of an hour now, Itsuki had been listening to Pole Bearer rambling about one thing or another. You could keep track of what he was talking about for, say, ten minutes, then he's either switching subjects every three sentences or you're annoyed or bored to tears. Even the likes of Fallen Woman were reduced to saying 'Uh-huh' whenever he managed to shut up. There were even rumors that kind old Mr. Kiryu had been driven to chasing him around the village and waving doll limbs at him.

Everyone discovered or heard that the best survival strategy was to look at his eyes as though you were actually paying attention, space out, and make a noise of agreement if he paused. Though there was some dispute about wether this was the 'best,' since after about fifteen minutes, eye contact became purely optional.

At this point, Itsuki was resting his head on his right elbow and staring off into the distance, occasionally watching a butterfly go by.

And then something caught his attention. Desperate to focus on anything... _anything..._ he put all of his concentration into it, even blocking out the sounds of Pole Bearer's rambling.

Since Itsuki was barely visited anymore, as the game's plot had disappeared, he was sensitive to presences. Not in a supernatural sense, but in the way that humans can tell when someone has entered a room. However, Itsuki couldn't identify a lot about a presence until it got closer, unless it was distinct in some way. He couldn't even tell if it was a human or ghost presence!

As the presence got stronger and closer, he could sense a sharp maliciousness about it. His first thought was that it might be a rather peeved Ceremony Master, and made a mental note to duck and cover. Perhaps Pole Bearer did something? Itsuki abandoned the idea when no floating iceballs of death rushed through the wall.

His second thought was that it could be a rather rare occasion; Lord Himuro forgot to take his Ritalin, killed everybody in his mansion until he got bored, and wandered over here. That happened sometimes. Yet, that thought was abandoned also. This presence was slowly approaching, and Lord Himuro, especially without his Ritalin, teleported all over the place.

"Uh, like, hello?"

Itsuki turned back to his tormenter. _Aw, crap._ "Yes, Lordofallannoyingthings."

Pole Bearer blinked, tried to process the word, found nothing in his personal dictionary, and discarded it. Once this filtering process was over, his internal hard-drive whirred and went back to BlahBlahBlah.exe. There was an error notice: TARGET HAS STOPPED RESPONDING. WTF?

"Are you even, like, listening to me?" He demanded, crossing his arms and frowning.

"...Maybe..." Said Itsuki. The first syllable had come out rather harsh, and he had only just started to regret it when he noticed that there were no butterflies, causing the rest of the word to fall away.

Pole Bearer opened his mouth once more. "You know, you really are a _jerk._ When someone's talking to you, you listen you... little..." His insults slowly died, seeing the look in Itsuki's eyes.

Now, Pole Bearer having not watched any movies that were not 'chick flicks,' or ever played any games without 'Barbie' in the title, he could not have possibly known that they are always... ALWAYS... standing right behind you.

"Uh, what's your problem?" Pole Bearer asked, sounding a little scared himself.

Slowly, Pole Bearer followed Itsuki's gaze, which fell to a spot somewhere behind him. Except this time, the gaze was not one of a daydreamer. Fear starting to creep in, Pole Bearer turned around.

After the few seconds his brain required to process the image in front of him, he emitted a shriek that put the Ceiling Incident to shame. Before he could admire the volume of his scream, something extremely painful and hot struck his face in three jagged lines. With a genuine howl of pain and terror, Pole Bearer turned and bolted straight through the Storehouse and somewhere off.

Itsuki started to tremble. Though the claws left no marks whatsoever, and news of the Kusabi vs. Kusabi incident hadn't reached him yet, he still felt pure terror.

Itsuki started to back up and crouch down at the same time. His new angle allowed himself to see the rest of the thing's upper body. It was examining its claws out of animal curiosity, and would start to examine the storehouse any second...

_WhatthehellRUN!_

For the first time ever since the Repentance, Itsuki tried to escape his prison. He ran to the door _(Oh why did I go for the Realistic Living Package!?)_ and tried to float through it, but only ran into a mighty invisible wall. Feeling his heart pound _(WHY?)_ he tried to open the door through normal means, but it didn't budge.

Panic destroyed the rest of his senses. "Help! HELP!" He cried, pounding at the door with his fists. When nothing happened...

Itsuki, having never left his little house in quite a while, had also never seen a horror movie or played a frightening game. Therefore, he could not possibly know that you never turn around and look. EVER.

So, of course, he turned from the door to see his attacker.

Itsuki Tachibana didn't even have a chance to scream.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

HatredKusabi made a hissing noise, bending down and glaring into the storehouse window at the dead body inside. Showing his animalistic tendencies once more, he actually reached in and prodded the form. The beams of the ceiling and the rope creaked, perhaps dangerously, but nothing else happened.

With an unsatisfied grunt, he withdrew his arm. As though to make sure his would-be prey was actually dead, HatredKusabi stayed and watched for a few seconds. When nothing happened, he stood at his full height and left.

Several long minutes later, Itsuki let out a mental sigh of relief.

_Ohthankgodforquickthinking._

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"Now... Can any of you tell me what the force of the X is called?"

The Rope Temple was in Lecture Mode... Well, in other words, a variety of cold folding chairs, beanbags, and brightly-colored inflatable chairs had been dragged out and placed in rows. Of course, the priests that paid attention and did their homework got the seats of their choice, while certain other students had to sit on the freezing-cold chairs.

Ryokan paced in front of this variety of seats, passing through the altar-thing multiple times to accomplish this.

_I'm getting desks for this place once some decent funding comes in..._

He paused in front of one priest's desk in the first row, causing him to automatically straighten his posture and prepare for an answer.

Ryokan generated an iceball of doom, and sent it to the right hand side of the tense priest. Like a possessed snowball, it found itself in the face of another ghost, and the Tense Priest (tm?) let out a breath of relief.

"Noguzzuhwah?" Iceballed Priest asked, waking up instantly.

"I do not believe we have _naptime,_ Gary." Said the Ceremony Master, his face darkening as it approached Skull Mode. "Now... Who can tell me what the force of the X is called?"

A priest sitting in the second-to-last row raised his hand.

"Alex?"

"I believe that force is called... the Horniness?"

A few priests sniggered. Ryokan's face, though having fully hit Skull Mode, hadn't changed expression. Though it's hard to have an expression without a face.

"Alex, shall I have you transferred to Ms. Broken Neck's Daycare Center?"

"No, that will not be necessary, sir." Veiled Priest Alex said, a bit of a smirk in his voice.

"Nonetheless, see me after class for yet _more_ lines. Keep it up, and I'll get the thesaurus." Alex muttered something that sounded profane.

_"Just for that, double the usual number of lines, Alex."_ The priest's jaw dropped.

"Now... For the _last_ time, who can tell me what the force of the X is called?" Ryokan was getting incredibly annoyed at this point.

Another priest, this one sitting in the farthest right seat of the first row, raised his hand.

"Steve?" Ryokan sounded rather relieved, though he retained his skull face.

"The force of the X is known as the Malice, sir."

"Correct, Steve." Steve beamed. A few of the other priests shot glances at him.

"Well, I'm glad _some_ members of this class knows what they're doing..." Ryokan said, his slowly face returning to normal as he resumed his pacing. "Now, the Malice was first noted in-"

Then the entire class was interrupted, causing Ryokan's left eye to twitch.

"TROLL IN TH- Uh, REALLY NASTY THING AT THE STOREHOUSE!" Screamed a distressed Pole Bearer. Suddenly, the poor dear tripped. For a moment he stared blankly at the wall, before screeching "I BROKE A NAIL!" and fainting.

There were about two seconds of stunned silence, everyone in the Rope Temple staring at the fallen Pole Bearer. "Steve, Jake. Get him somewhere quiet." Ryokan ordered, not taking his eyes off of the fragile, fragile ghost. "Bob, fetch the Kusabi _if_ you can find him, and tell him that the dog may be out of its cage. Everyone else, make sure that everyone is in some kind of building, any building, and that they stay in there. This includes the human twins. Get to it."

The priests dashed off to their various assignments in a flurry of gray reminiscent of pigeons. Wether their speed was out of fear, a desire to protect the villagers, or a glee born of missing class, is debatable.

Amidst the chaos, Ryokan Kurosawa teleported to the house's entrance.

This was not going to be a fun night.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The priests Steve and Jake carried Pole Bearer to the small closet in the Great Hall, meeting a confused Masumi.

Masumi actually paused his MP3 Player for a second, showing that his curiosity and confusion was truly great.

"What's going on?" He asked, standing up. His eyes found the unconscious ghost, and he felt a mixture of worry and a strange sickness in his stomach.

"We do not know yet." Steve said hastily. "Please move, we need to put him down."

Masumi obediently moved through the right wall, though he stuck his head in to see what was happening.

The priests started to lower Pole Bearer to the ground, Jake muttering "Easy now... Easy..."

They came within inches of succeeding in their goal when both ghosts let out small cries and _dropped_ Pole Bearer, his body falling with a fleshy thunk.

The ghost had suddenly gotten heavier…

The priests backed up, looking at each other and at Pole Bearer. "What the heck just happened?" Demanded Steve to no one in particular, looking around frantically as though the air could provide an answer.

Steve started to say something, but Masumi cut across him. "Dude, shut up for a second!"

Jake turned to chew him out, but once more Masumi interrupted. "Seriously! Listen!"

The urgency in his voice caused the priests to shut up, straining their ears and scanning the walls and ceiling.

"What is that?" Steve whispered, locking onto the noise, though unable to identify what it could be.

A few seconds later, Masumi answered. "I think… it's a heartbeat…"

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Bob the Veiled Priest quietly stalked through the village, occasionally hearing or glimpsing his fellow priests rushing around. He'd checked the entire Kurosawa House two times over and stayed in the Great Hall for five minutes straight, and nothing had happened. Kusabi wasn't banned to stay in the house, so Bob decided this was the only place he could go.

Bob went through the village about three times, pausing near the Osaka house. Clearly, Kusabi wasn't lingering in the streets. He started to consider what to do next when he felt a peculiar feeling. It was a deep feeling of uneasiness, and the odd, buzzing sensation of being watched. Bob swallowed nervously. This was a haunted village, for god's sake, that 'being watched' feeling was a daily occurrence.

Bob decided to make one last route through the village, the feelings staying with him the entire time. While he was passing the Kiryu house, he decided to climb Misono Hill... Maybe he could see something from there... He could also cry out, though the thought alone felt terrifying and repulsive.

When he was almost at the base of the Hill, a wave of cold hit him as he realized...

_He was being hunted._

For the first time since he was alive, a true fear of dying flooded his senses. Bob could have sworn he felt a heartbeat as he turned around and bolted, hoping to make it to the Kurosawa house.

Bob turned, facing the Kiryu house, and froze in place, his semi-heartbeat stopping.

HatredKusabi had its back to him, and it looked like it was tossing something from hand to hand, making soft growling noises.

_It was playing..._

Bob slowly backed away and turned around, facing the hill. If he ran fast enough, he could make it to the Old Tree in the cemetery and go to the Shrine... He was about to take a step towards the hill when he felt an urge to turn to the left, facing the path that led to the storehouse.

Another HatredKusabi.

Feeling terror again, he sharply turned to his other side, once more facing the Kiryu house. HatredKusabi stood there, his back still to him, though he was completely stiff.

Turn. Storehouse. HatredKusabi.

Turn. Kiryu House. HatredKusabi.

_This can't be!_

Losing control, Bob bolted up Misono Hill, the features of the land becoming blurs. Hilltop… Bridge… Cemetery...

"Dude, what's going on?" A voice asked, dashing over and stopping Bob with one arm.

Bob looked at his stopper. It was Alex, making sure nobody tried to hide in the graveyard. Bob yelled at him, terrified and shaking. "Run, damnit, run! It's that thing again!"

"What are you talking about!? Ow, hey!"

Bob shoved his arm aside and ran to the Old Tree. He knelt to enter and darted forward like a lizard's tongue, but let out a cry of pain.

An invisible wall... The Old Tree was blocked to ghosts!

"Oh my god!"

Bob turned and felt another wave of terror as a familiar form just passed the bridge and onto the cemetery land. Time seemed to slow down as it turned its sights on Alex... Bob could even notice that the ghost had changed slightly since its last appearance...

Its eyes weren't dark and blank anymore. They were more of a very dark red now, and were filled with predatory urges and instincts. Its teeth seemed to be constantly bared to some degree, and though it seemed to have a normal, full mouth of teeth, it also had long, curved fangs similar to a tiger's. Its free arm was longer, and seemed to have acquired sharp claws as well. Its ropes hadn't changed though, existing to make it seem larger and occasionally act as tools.

WrathKusabi grew closer to Alex, who seemed to be frozen to his spot among the gravestones. The monster stood near him, watching him. It cocked its head.

Alex made a move to run around him... to the left...

Then WrathKusabi, with incredible speed, slashed at his chest.

Alex let out a cry of pain and stumbled forward. Though the claws left no marks, Alex was clutching his chest in terrible pain. He looked back at Bob, fear in his eyes. Since the priest had only moved a few feet, WrathKusabi could still reach him. With an infuriating apathy, the wraith slapped Alex's back with the back of its hand. With a last cry so soft it was almost a squeak, Alex stumbled forward and fell to the ground, completely still.

_It's like he's dying again..._ Bob thought, feeling numb.

The blissful numbness died at WrathKusabi looked at him. In terror, Bob turned back to the Old Tree, hammering at it with both physical blows and weak, unfocused magical spells.

Almost panting in fear, Bob turned to see WrathKusabi towering over him, and screamed.


	13. An Awful, Awful Idea

A/N- I kept thinking "Buahahaha" while I was writing this.

NOTE- I DON'T OWN FATAL FRAME, FATAL FRAME II, MIO, MAYU, THE CAMERA OBSCURA, THE KUSABI, OR ANY OTHER GHOSTS MENTIONED.

The Many Faces of The Kusabi

Chapter Thirteen: An Awful, Awful Idea...

"Where _are_ they!?" Exclaimed Veiled Priest Steve, pacing around the bloody closet in the Great Hall. Well, he didn't so much as pace as float in a manner that suggested pacing.

His fellow priest, Jake, hovered by the left-hand wall. He also seemed to be slightly irritated, though wether it was related to the situation or just rub-off annoyance from Steve was unknown.

Between the ghosts was a far too warm and fleshy Pole Bearer. The curse of WrathKusabi seemed to be complete, or almost complete. He had a steady heartbeat and breathing rate, and he seemed to be in what the village's inhabitants called "Human sleep." He even occasionally moved his head or muttered inaudible nonsense. The only thing that suggested he was ever dead was that he was still a little cool, and had a slightly gray tint to him. Other than that, Pole Bearer might as well be alive.

Outside of this strange scene, there was the frequent noise of rushing air as a ghost dashed by, and an occasional grave-sounding mumble from somewhere beyond.

Outside of this closet, there was tension and fear. None of the ghosts, save for the priests, the Ceremony Master, and witnesses such as Itsuki, nobody knew what was going on. There wasn't a single moment of boredom, except perhaps for some of the children spirits who pretended this was a very strange game and generally acted normally.

Inside of this closet, it was extremely boring and agitating. The presence of Pole Bearer seemed to activate a great and terrible instinct to run away, as though his state of Living was a sickness. Since neither ghost could listen to this instinct, they were very irritated. On top of it all, the Ceremony Master had told them about ten minutes ago that Veiled Priests Bob and Joe would be coming to take their places. Steve and Jake knew very well that the two were hopelessly incompetent and wondered just why he had chosen _them_ to watch over Pole Bearer, but never questioned him. Like the two ghosts stuck in this closet, the Ceremony Master had become rather irritable himself, with the priests making mistakes that couldn't afford to be made, and all of the children ghosts making bids for freedom, some of them far too close to becoming successful.

"Just give them a few more minutes." Said Jake, drumming his fingers on the wall and observing the bloodstains around them. Maybe he could find nice pictures or words in the red shapes...

Precisely forty-five annoying seconds later, Pole Bearer made a small noise and turned his head. Judging by the expression on his face, he was having a small nightmare.

This seemed to push Steve over the edge, who threw his arms up in exasperation.

"I'm finding those two incompetent fools myself! I can't take this nonsense! What if it's contagious!?" He said/ranted, making a wild gesture towards innocent Pole Bearer, who mumbled what sounded like "Killer breakfast glass..."

"Then we would have caught it by now, wouldn't we!?" Snapped Jake, his own agitation boiling over. "We're screwed even if you _do_ find someone!"

"Whatever." Snorted Steve. "I'm finding them no matter what anyone says."

"Fine then. Your un-funeral." Jake hissed as Steve faded away in a teleport.

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A few seconds later, Steve reappeared on top of Misono Hill. He winced as his head started to ache, partially from the stress of the closet and partially from having teleported such a long distance. That happened to Non-Boss NPCs sometimes.

Later on, Steve would smack himself on the forehead for this. Later on, he would learn that seconds after he had left, the Ceremony Master and a few other priests had teleported into the Kurosawa House, Joe in tow and carrying the forms of Bob and Alex. Later on, Steve would realize he got a headache and the nickname "Sally" just because he couldn't afford to wait another two seconds.

But for now, Steve had one main concern: The presence behind him.

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"Jake, where is Steve?" The Ceremony Master asked, narrowing his eyes.

"He ran off to find Bob and Joe by himself, sir." Jake said calmly, the majority of his agitation having left with Steve. In fact, he was perfectly okay now, seeing Joe right next to the Ceremony Master.

Ryokan Kurosawa had to stop himself from growling. That stupid, arrogant boy...

"I suppose we will have to find him too. Nonetheless, Joe is here to take your place. All you have to do now is guard the entrance to the Kiryu house. Go there immediately." He said, keeping his irritation out of his voice.

"Yes, sir." Said Jake obediently, fading in a teleport that he knew he was going to regret very soon. At least he was out of that damn closet...

"Pizza nonchalantly mudboils..." Mumbled Pole Bearer.

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Naturally, the Ceremony Master had only just floated out of the closet when there was another crisis, coming in the form of a feminine scream and sounds of collision from the Entrance.

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When the Ceremony Master arrived, he was already in Fugly Skull Mode. Lying beyond the decaying butterfly tapestry were three ghosts. In the middle was Veiled Priest Steve, curled into the fetal position. Nearby was another priest that had been guarding the door, rising from a fall and rubbing his head in pain. Fallen Woman lay not far from him, looking very dazed.

"What is going on here?!" Growled the Ceremony Master. This was an all-village lockdown! The last time one of these was required, it was when it was confirmed Topher Grace would be playing Eddie Brock in Spider-Man 3, causing several of the village fanboys to go insane.

Fetal Position Steve (tm) let out a squeak. "Monsters chasing me again, daddy. I want strawberry pancakes!" He muttered/demanded, clearly having regressed to a childish state.

He must have been talking about WrathKusabi...

Suddenly, the priest that had been guarding the door let out a smaller version of Steve's feminine scream and fainted, just as Fallen Woman was starting to wake up again. Of course, she jumped a little, banged her head on the wall, and promptly fell unconscious. Steve squealed and curled into a tighter ball than before, still babbling.

The Ceremony Master looked up in alarm, and was actually somewhat startled for a moment. And that's a hard thing to do. Then he recognized what it was and calmed down immediately.

Kusabi had poked his head through the door. "Oh, hello there." He said, looking around at the chaos and blinking.

Then the Ceremony Master got an idea. An awful, awful idea...

_No, that is "lame."_

So that idea fell away and got replaced by another one.


	14. Security and Sacrifice

A/N- I just noticed that HatredKusabi's name suddenly changes to 'WrathKusabi' in the last chapter. I think I'm going to keep it that way, since 'WrathKusabi' seems to be easier to remember. I may or may not go back and correct the mistakes.

A/N- Just a warning that a lone F-bomb is dropped here. I apologize in advance, and it will be both the first and the last.

NOTE- I DON'T OWN FATAL FRAME, FATAL FRAME II, MIO, MAYU, THE CAMERA OBSCURA, THE KUSABI, OR ANY OTHER GHOSTS MENTIONED.

The Many Faces of The Kusabi

Chapter Fourteen: Security and Sacrifice

_Several weeks later..._

Bloop.

'I guess we're birds of a feather now, right?'

Beep.

'yeah... this is just sick'

Bloop

'I'm starting to .hope. that nobody dare come out here. God knows what I might do to them. Especially dearest Ceremony Master. I managed to forgive him for the ritual that made me what I am, but I don't think I can ever, ever forgive this... I'm sorry, I'm ranting.'

Bleep.

'its okay, any1 else wuld do the same... so, um, out of curiosity, why r u using perfect grammar an such in a fone txt convo?'

Bloop.

'It occupies my mind and wastes a little time.'

Bleep.

'that makes sense'

Bloop.

'Indeed.'

Bleep.

'can we chang the sub? thinking bout it makes it worse.'

Bloop.

'I think you're right about that...'

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"So I said some line or another, and the Wanderer and Masumi are just drifting by, probably going home. Then Wanderer stops and says 'You know she raised her prices, right?' in this really cold tone. Just out of the blue... Well, out of the gray. Anyway, the next thing I know, bam, there's a catfight going on that takes three people to stop."

"Wow."

"That's the kinda thing that makes you start believing in Masumi's rants. Maybe this stuff really is turning everyone rotten."

"Maybe... Yow!" Steve cried out, flinching as Chitose ran past, giggling in a rather disturbing fashion. Following his more-than-minor panic attack, Veiled Priest Steve still tended to flinch at sudden movements.

"Hey! You're not allowed to play down here!" Unnamed Priest #4 yelled, his voice echoing through the underground tunnel.

For the past two weeks or so, the tunnels beneath the village had been used as a transportation system between the various houses, after the rubble had been cleared of course. The priests didn't mind having to watch down here, as the odd Mourner shambling past and epic battles between Pete the Pirate and Some Guy the Ninja provided quite a lot of entertainment.

There were some downsides, however. The Mourners had changed drastically, their mumblings changing from senseless, fragmented thoughts to frightening, strange things. "Hey... cell... cat, stop... plants..." had become "She... She hurt so many, now it's time... But she's alone... Yet, it will... The sky... The sky..."

Even worse, the Mourners would sometimes stand completely straight and look someone in the eye as they spoke. They had become 100-percent aware, perhaps even more than that...

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Sae paused outside the eastern door to the Great Hall, having just noticed a faint, almost invisible change in the air. With a sigh, she realized that it was another vision trigger, probably left there as a prank. It was also a powerful trigger, strong enough to mess with the minds of ghosts.

_I might as well get it out of the way before the recently-living find it..._

_As if their minds aren't fragile enough without this crap._

That was all she needed to make up her mind. Shaking her head a little at this stupidity, Sae drifted through the door and, as predicted, was nearly blinded by a flash of light.

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_Mio walked past the fireplace in the Great Hall, the storm outside pounding on the Kurosawa house. _

_'Was this a true storm, or yet another illusion?'_

_Mio paused to look at the fireplace itself as lighting flashed, have thought for a brief second that something was there. When nothing happened, she swallowed and stepped forward._

_Her foot bumped up against something solid._

_'What is that?' Mio thought, stepping back a little and squinting at the dark shape._

_Suddenly, lightning flashed._

_A corpse covered in slashes and cuts lie at Mio's feet._

_With a cry of terror she stumbled backwards. In the flashes of lightning that allowed brief and terrible seconds of vision in the darkness, she saw that there were actually countless bodies around her, all of them horribly wounded._

_Mio stumbled around on the rare spaces of uncovered floor, terrified and almost sick with disgust and fear. Then she realized..._

_There was someone behind her._

_Mio turned around and found herself face to face with..._

_"Okay, okay." Sae said, concealing a grin. One of the Limbo Men stood in front of her, and Kusabi was hovering nearby. "So this mushroom walks into a dance club and asks a girl to dance. She replies 'Are you kidding? You're a mushroom!' The mushroom says 'So what? I'm a FUN GUY!"_

_Both Sae and the Limbo Man burst into mildly-deranged laughter as Kusabi rolled his eyes. A corpse lying near Mio reached out, its eyes pleading._

_Kusabi turned, though he continued to feign amusement and interest, probably mentally stringing together a good excuse._

_"Dear god... Get me out of here!" The corpse begged, before the Kusabi accidentally stepped on him while trying to slip away from the pair._

_"Oops."_

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"Ugh." Sae thought aloud, clearing her head of the less-than-funny memory. How did living humans stand these things?

_I wish they would quit using Kusabi memories..._

Sae stared off into space for a moment, the usual mixture of numbness, embarrassment, and even a bit of fear and hate making its way into her soul.

However, she was shaken from her thoughts by a soft, shaky whimper coming from the bloody closet.

_Oh no..._

She hurried over to the wall and pressed her ear to it. The whimpering continued.

Sae gently knocked. "Priest Bob?"

There was a sharp yipping noise, then human speech. "Y-y-eah..."

"Do you want me to get you out of there?"

"P-p-please...Please..."

"I'm going to use the door."

"K-k-k-ay."

Mentally willing the blood off her kimono and wishing she could do something about her deathly pale skin, Sae made a point of making her footsteps heard as she walked to the door. Careful not to make the wood creak too much, Sae slid open the closet door.

Curled up in the corner of the closet was the recently-living Veiled Priest Bob. Like the other Living, he was easily frightened, an outcast, and suffered every single vision-trap that had been set up. Even worse, ever since the Ceremony Master did what he did, the number of pranks had been steadily increasing.

"Come on, let's get out of here..." Sae said gently, approaching poor Bob. He nodded without a word, taking Sae's hand as she helped him up. The poor creature was longing to get out so badly he didn't even notice the terrible cold of Sae's skin.

"This is so cruel... We're doing our best to make sure these things don't happen... Try to stay away from big places like this, okay?" She said and asked soothingly as she led Bob out of the closet, making sure he didn't fall. He made a small noise of affirmation in reply.

A few steps into the Great Hall itself, Sae felt the familiar, hard-to-describe sensation of being stared at. She tried to ignore it, though it only grew more fierce, more hateful.

Sae paused near the exiting door. With an annoyed sigh, she turned to her left to find Masumi hovering by the wall that separated the fireplace from the rest of the hall. As predicted, he was glaring hatefully at her.

"What do you want?" Sae asked, already knowing what the answer would be.

"Nothing, really. It just _amazes_ me to see a Kurosawa playing nice." He hissed.

Sae ignored him and turned to speak to Bob. "This isn't going to be pretty. Do you want to go now?"

"Y-yeah... I think I'll be okay... Go read a book..."

"Are you sure?"

"Y-yeah..."

"Okay. I think there are a few People in Dark just past the wall, so be ready."

"I will." Said Bob, his voice returning. "Thanks for getting me away from here."

"No problem." Said Sae, smiling as Bob scampered out of the room.

_At least Masumi is nice enough to wait for these poor Living..._

The instant Veiled Priest Bob had left, the blood returned to Sae's kimono as she turned and glared at Masumi. "I don't like it a lot either, but everyone was _hysterical_, Masumi! How do you think things would have been if he'd let Kusabi in? How do you think things would have been if nobody had any way to tell one from the other, because let's face it: Unlike _you,_ some of us don't hang around this area enough to tell them apart! Think what some of the villagers would have _done_ to him, Masumi! It could have been a million times worse!" She snarled, letting out weeks and weeks of anger in one full burst. A cloud of blood began to appear, snaking up from the floor in red tendrils.

"That doesn't give him _any _right to..." He started to growl in reply, but Sae cut him off.

"How about you do everyone a favor, Masumi... Take a trip _outside_, get some fresh air... How about fond the village Emo Corner and, oh... _FUCK OFF!"_

There was a stunned silence. Though other ghosts and Living occasionally swore, those such as the Ryokan and Sae Kurosawa never uttered so much as a 'damnit.' That was part of the reason for the shock, but some of it was Sae's own; the profanity was the only thing in that sentence she regretted...

Masumi opened his mouth, shut it, and decided the best thing to do was flee and (un)live another day. He faded in a teleport, leaving Sae to glower at empty air.

Behind her, a few People in Dark poked their heads through the wall.

"Hey, we found a good o-Uh, nevermind." They said, and disappeared just as quickly as they had come.


	15. Dream and Flashback

A/N- Thankfully, the break from fanfiction-ing wasn't as long as I thought it could be. Thanks for reviews, everyone!

A/N- Right now, I'm planning four endings. Three are parodies of the FF2 endings, save for the Official Ending. The other is a new one that matches the storyline of "The Many Faces of the Kusabi." This one is the one I shall write and upload _first._

**Warning - Fatal Frame 2 Spoilers!**

NOTE- I DON'T OWN FATAL FRAME, FATAL FRAME II, MIO, MAYU, THE CAMERA OBSCURA, THE KUSABI, OR ANY OTHER GHOSTS MENTIONED.

The Many Faces of The Kusabi

Chapter Fifteen: Dream and Flashback

_"Everyone's been waiting for this... Because we saw it... Though we didn't know it..."_

_Mio removed her hands from her sister's neck, the impressions of her palms leaving a red shape that had become far too familiar._

_"I cannot... Will not..." Sae thought to herself, standing on the Heaven Bridge and looking skyward._

_"And some... are smarter than others."_

_A group of Mourners stood on top of Misono Hill, surrounded by crimson butterflies._

_"I'm sorry, but this is how it's meant to be."_

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Kusabi jerked awake from his sleep, the strange dream still whispering into his mind.

_"I'm sorry, but this is how it's meant to be."_ That voice was unknown, yet so familiar; like it belonged to a friend he had once known for years before they drifted apart...

He shivered, partially from the memory and partially from the sudden new atmosphere that the village had adopted over the last few days.

The darkness of the Malice seemed unusually strong, coiling and watching from the unlit places of the village. Dark whisperings tugged at the corners of his mind, though when he tried to figure out what they were saying, listening harder than before, they were gone. Even the butterflies seemed to be affected; normally, when they fluttered, it was a thing of beauty, of total peace and understanding. Now, they seemed to be mourning, hovering around the Twin Deity Statues scattered throughout the village.

Trying not to let himself become too absorbed into such things, Kusabi stood from his usual sleeping spot by the invisible wall at the village gate. As usual, both of his upper shoulders screamed in protest.

_Aw crap. There's that annoying song again. It's another stupid flashback seque-_

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"FLASHBACK!" Screamed the narrator whilst doing jazz-hands.

_'That creaking. A soft lullaby, whispering the litany of a thousand screaming dead... whydidievercomehereagain?'_

"It's fascinating. It's as though the madness of his mind has grown into his very _soul,_ tearing it in two. The injuries... they vanished as soon as he switched..."

_'Funny. I think I heard that voice before... I wish I knew that they were talking about. Brush the cobwebs away. __**Where is this place and why am I here?**_

"But at the same time, the trauma of the other seems to be affecting him as well... He still hasn't woken up..."

'_Hey, that voice is different. No, quiet. Focus. I wish that guy would stop screaming. It's distracting.'_

"I wonder what he's thinking, if anything..."

_'Ehehe, no you don't. Why am I thinking that? Where is that screaming coming from? Why is this so familiar? Look for the memories. Do I want to remember?'_

"Enough with that chatter, all of you."

_'That voice... I remember now!' It all came in a rush. The distant screaming stopped._

_... The cherry blossoms, the little flowers falling to the ground. Two girls, a ritual. Leave this place, Ryozo. Why are they keeping me here? Creak, ropes, pain, never-ending suffering, and blood. Darkness, hate, cold. That housewarming party in the Abyss, and then we had a couple too many tequilas. Okay, __**I**__ had too many. Uh. Ouch, killer hangover. Ohgod, my __**face**__. Hello brothers... Masumi, turn down that damn rock music before I... whoops. _

_Damn kids... _

_Psycho's dead... _

_What's going on, guys? Stop looking at me like that! It... what? No, that's impossible. __**We're**__ the only ones left... We didn't do anything! No, I don't know where he is... What are you doing?_

Kusabi opened his eyes to find himself in a place far too familiar; suspended above the instruments in the Rope temple, the priests and Ceremony Master looking up at him. He wondered fleetingly if this was just another nightmare, but the feeling of his ropes, stretched tightly, crushed his hopes. But what was he doing here? The Abyss only wanted _living_ sacrifices...

This had to bad; only the more competent of the priests were here, and the Ceremony Master had his sword again. Though it wasn't bloodstained and was as shiny as ever... about two hundred years of bored scrubbing and no real rituals to bloody it again made it quite nice to look at... there was an aura coming off of it that was inexplicably _wrong._

Kusabi started to squirm and make noises of protest, but it was useless. The ropes never gave, and nobody ever spoke. The only exception to the latter tendency was when the Ceremony Master said one little sentence.

"You must be made different from your fellows, lest the village mistake one for the other, and we are all consumed by hate and fear."

And then the first of the pains began.

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He couldn't remember a lot after that, mostly flashes of white-hot pain, broken only by cold shivers of healing, and then more pain. The only thing he could clearly recall was a thought he had made and written once, repeating in his mind without stopping.

_"It is a funny thing, ghost injuries... In time, each and every wound will heal. It is somewhat common for a ghost child to fall off the Heaven Bridge and break their necks, and it is treated with the same attitude as a "boo-boo" or a common cold. Yet, some individuals, such as Broken Neck Woman and myself, have a permanent injury._

_I believe this has to do with Perception. Perception is of the mind or soul and, in the end, a ghost is just one or both of these that has somehow survived without a shell to hide in. Without physical constraints, the Perception and mind/soul roam free, and their appearance is really just a solidified form of their self-image._

_How does this relate to permanent wounds?_

_Just before we (meaning those of us with permanent wounds) died, our final thoughts were of our injuries. Just before Broken Neck Woman died, she heard that terrible snap, then silence. My own thoughts, bloodied and slowed by pain, were a dull awareness of my own suffering. Limbo Woman glanced at the bleeding stumps of her arms before the darkness claimed her... _

_This realization left a deep scar on our Perceptions and self-image because it is the last image of ourselves that we have. Thus, we retain this picture._

_The reason that most other wounds heal is because it leaves no great impact on their minds. It is not their final thought before falling into death, nor is it repeated time and time again until it twists their minds. Though the injury may be scary, especially for a child, it is not so mentally scarring that the wound stays. Eventually, their Perception and self-image returns to normal._

_For a ghost to suddenly have a new, permanent wound, his/her Perception must be (forcibly?) changed on __**every single level..."**_

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It was the last sentence that rang the most in Kusabi's mind, for it was the sole property that caused the process to take hours and hours, the resulting noises of slashing and screaming echoing through the entire Kurosawa house.

The only small mercy of it all was the fact that Angst!Kusabi, who was already incredibly fragile, needed to go through it only once.

The pain took days to become bearable enough to allow movement... and the pitying stares coming from the Heaven Bridge as they lurched past, learning how to walk again...

Cats have tails so that they can balance themselves as they move about. To take away a cat's tail, or even shorten it too much, is to take away some of their sense of balance.

Who would have guessed that Kusabi ropes were like tails?


	16. Breach

A/N- From the looks of it, this is the last chapter before the endings.

NOTE- I DON'T OWN FATAL FRAME, FATAL FRAME II, MIO, MAYU, THE CAMERA OBSCURA, THE KUSABI, OR ANY OTHER GHOSTS MENTIONED.

The Many Faces of The Kusabi

Chapter Sixteen: Breach

The butterflies continued to hover around the nearby deity statue as Kusabi lurched forward a few steps. _I swear, it gets gloomier around here every time I wake up..._

After his shoulders were done protesting, Kusabi looked around and frowned. His 'brother,' Angst!Kusabi, wasn't here... Maybe he went to see Itsuki again?

Yet, as he made his way around the village paths, taking special care to avoid the stupid Heaven Bridge, Kusabi never recognized the distinct form of his brother. As he looked for the unique shape of his sibling, he couldn't stop the half-formed, bitter thoughts that came whenever he searched for him… As promised by the Ceremony Master, each Kusabi brother was terribly unique; Kusabi was missing both upper ropes, Angst!Kusabi only his upper right, and this "WrathKusabi" that everyone was terrified of was fully intact.

_Ugh._ Kusabi thought as he realized that he would, indeed, have to check near the Heaven Bridge and surrounding areas. How did that saying go? "It's always in the last place you look?"

It was unlikely that Angst!Kusabi would be there, but these times were strange. Anything could happen...

The Heaven Bridge was the only place in the village where someone could look outside, but tonight, it was strangely empty. There were the Kiryu twins, with their backs turned to him as they eagerly pointed out butterflies in the distance, and a Mourner, which was... eerily... looking straight at Kusabi. Though this 'staring' was unpleasant, there was a certain sadness hovering around the Mourner, even when its gray form faded away to teleport.

"Ugh. Shut _up._" Kusabi muttered to himself a moment later, closing his eyes. The strange, dark whispers that had been haunting him… no pun intended… had suddenly become much worse. If he concentrated enough, he might even be able to pick out a few words…

Then he heard one of the Kiryu girls scream.

_This better not be mistaken identity... SOMEONE might start getting id-_

Even Kusabi's thoughts were cut off in fear and realization when he turned around.

Standing there was WrathKusabi, looking just as feral as he'd heard, yet a thousand times worse...

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"I'm awake, I'm awake!" Muttered one of the priests, who had been, up until this point, laying just outside the left door of the bridge. He was supposed to be guarding the bridge, but the last few days had been quiet, and he just came in to rest his eyes… And now someone was screaming, and it didn't matter _what_ the cause, the priest knew that the Ceremony Master would be chewing him out for it later on...

After nearly tripping over his robes, the priest managed to straighten himself enough to stumble through the door, just as both Kiryu twins ran straight through him. The resulting purplish, screaming blur _almost_ threw him off, but he resisted. Ha!

His momentary glory was destroyed once he got a good look at what the girls had been screaming at.

It was one of the Kusabis... the intelligent one that didn't get himself in trouble all the time... standing just feet away from another one, the one that meant trouble. What's-their-faces.

_Please let this be a forced hallucination like last time..._

When the troublesome Kusabi suddenly grabbed the other with all four ropes and threw him in the priest's general direction, making quite a sound impact, the priest realized he was wrong. This was far beyond just a hallucination...

WrathKusabi had somehow managed to **rip** himself free of his 'host' body...

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_Several chaos-filled moments later..._

"I call this dolly Winston." Said Mayu, holding up one of the male dolls.

The twins both thought that the Kiryu house was insanely creepy, but that didn't stop them from occasionally wandering over to the Doll Room to play with... you know, dolls. What else would be in there?

Mio pulled up a female doll at random and opened her mouth to give it the first name that came to mind, but she paused when she got a better look at its disturbingly curvy form. "I thought Mr. Kiryu made his own dolls... Then what is Pretty Princess Chocolate Sprinkles Mermaid Fairy Delight Barbie doing here?"

Neither twin had much time to think about this, as a scream rang out just past the door. The two exchanged glances, putting down their dolls to quietly creep over to the door. They slid it open just as something fell with a thud a few feet away.

They recognized the scantily-clad form of Fallen Woman immediately, but instead of scuttling around on her back, she was face-first and sprawled on the floor. And there was something about her that was… different.

Mr. Kiryu had apparently heard the scream as well; he floated through a nearby wall. But before he could try to help Fallen Woman, she awkwardly pulled herself to her feet.

"The Living Curse... it works much faster! Run!" The once-paralyzed ghost cried out as she regained her balance, swaying unsteadily on two feet. Before anyone could react, she bolted surprisingly fast, only to fall down again a few feet later.

This situation would have been funnier, had the twin's psychic senses stayed quiet. Instead, they started going off rather strongly. Again, the girls looked at each other just as another cry rang out. They both turned, and just managed to see Mr. Kiryu snatched up by a lightning-fast rope.

Both girls reflexively stepped back and shut the door, though they knew that the almighty powers of the Standard Wooden Door wouldn't be able to stop such a powerful ghost. Mio scurried over to the tunnel device, Mayu following a few inches behind her.

After about three seconds of staring blankly at the machine, Mio cried out, "I can't remember the combination!"

"Up up down down left right left right B A Start?" Suggested Mayu.

Mio gave her sister a strange look. Mayu shrugged.

Mio turned back to the machine and started turning the dolls in random directions, because we all know that randomly hitting buttons and turning levers will _always_ work.

Nothing happened.

Suddenly, Mio heard a sharp crack, and the device started opening up before her. Turning, she saw her sister standing by the one of the dolls, her hands behind her back as she was whistling innocently. The doll next to her, however, was standing rather oddly.

"Did you just..." Mio started to ask.

"I did nooothiiiing..." Mayu sang.

Before Mio could do anything more, a familiar gray form started coming in through the wall.

"Come on, we gotta hurry!" She said, grabbing her sister's arm.

"Gyap!" Cried out Mayu as she was half-dragged down the ladder and into the tunnels.


End file.
